


Hunger

by Lady_Felucia



Category: Halloween (1978), Halloween Movies - All Media Types, Horror - Fandom, Michael Myers - Fandom
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Brutal Murder, Brutality, Death, Decapitation, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Family Fluff, Family Secrets, Fluff, Gore, Halloween (1978) - Freeform, Horror, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Michael Myers - Freeform, Murder, Murder Family, Out of Character, Romance, Serial Killer-Fictional, Sex, Stabbing, Violence, Violent Thoughts, Women Who Love Men Who Kill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Felucia/pseuds/Lady_Felucia
Summary: The blooming relationship between a lonely young woman and death, incarnate.





	1. Chapter 1

" . . . this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes . . . the devil's eyes."

\--Dr. Loomis, Halloween (1978)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

"So who's this guy you're seeing now?"

Nicole grinned, looking at her friend.

They were sitting in Annie's Cafe, the one place in town where you could get a decent meal WITHOUT a crippling case of indigestion.

Susan worked here, as a waitress, and Nicole had stopped in for a visit. Business was slow today, and in between tables Susan came and talked to her where she was sitting at the counter, sipping a Coke. 

The two women had been friends for a few years, now, and always took an interest in each others romantic lives. 

Ever since Nicole had broken up with her last boyfriend over a year ago, Susan had been trying to set her up dates, sensing how lonely she was; but to no avail.

Nicole had always found it hard to connect to people in a romantic sense, and she preferred the loneliness she suffered to the awkwardness she felt in trying to cultivate a new relationship with someone new.

That is, until a few months ago.

"I like him a lot," Nicole said, her expression softening as she spoke of him. 

"He's what you would call the strong, silent type. Kind of tall. Good-looking. Doesn't say a whole lot but he's quite smart. He can even be funny, in an unintentional kind of way. He works a lot so I don't get to see him very often, but I like the time we do spend together."

"Well, I'm glad you found someone, Nicole. Someone to protect you. It's getting dangerous for a woman to be alone in this town, nowadays. Have you seen today's paper?"

Nicole nodded, frowning. Today's headline was much like the headlines had been for the past few weeks. Something along the lines of "five more found dead, 2 missing, no new leads".

"I have.", said Nicole, putting an arm on Susan's shoulder. "You know I worry about you leaving here so late at night."

"Oh, don't worry about me, sweetie. I always carry a can of mace with me, and I'm very observant of my surroundings. Besides most nights Carl or Bud walk me to my car, anyway."

"Well, that's good. Although I highly doubt Carl or Bud would be a match for Haddonfield's boogeyman."

Susan laughed, shaking her head. "You're probably right; but they're better than nothing. Besides if worse comes to worst, at least they provide enough of a distraction for me to get away, right?"

Now both women laughed, loudly, drawing amused stares from the few customers in the place.

"I guess that's true," said Nicole, smiling fondly at her friend.

"So when do I get to this mystery man of yours?", Susan asked, changing the subject. "You ever gonna bring him around here?"

"I don't think you'd want to meet him, actually. Most people who do think he's a little--scary."

Susan laughed a bit at that, before going to wipe down a table. "Well, maybe some day," she said over her shoulder. 

"Maybe."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She walked into her house, closing and locking the door behind herself. Before she made it to the lamp, she was aware of the sound of light breathing coming from the doorway connected to the kitchen. 

A large, hulking figure stood silhouetted in the darkness, head tilted, watching her approach.

"Oh!", she exclaimed, her smile lighting her whole face. "You're here!"

The shape said nothing, still watching. She felt her way to the lamp in the middle of the room.

"Oh, my," she said quietly, looking st him as she switched on the light. "You've--had a busy day, haven't you?"

He shuffled into the room, closer to where she stood. His knife, streaked with an oily dark red-black, was still clutched in his hand. His clothes were covered in random splotches of dried and drying blood, and quite a few long strands of hair and bits of mud were stuck to his mask.

Gently, she pried his fingers lose from the handle of his knife and carried it into the kitchen, dropping it in the sink. "Can't be running around with a dirty knife", she muttered to herself.

She grabbed a towel and a small basin, filling it with warm water and a generous squirt of soap.

She carried it into the dining room and set it on the table. Taking him by the hand, she pulled him to a chair and gestured for him to sit.

Wetting the towel, she went to work cleaning the gore from his mask, hands, and jumpsuit. He silently watched her, lifting his arms or legs when asked but otherwise remaining perfectly still. She had to stop and dump the water multiple times, as it quickly became over-saturated with blood; but eventually she got the job done.

"There.", she said calmly, smiling. "Good as new. Now, you must be hungry. Stay there; I'll heat us up some stew."

She returned to the kitchen with the final pan of water, dumping it down the sink and washing her hands before turning to the refrigerator, where she quickly dished up two plates of the stew she had made earlier in the day, warming them in the microwave.

She carried them back into the dining room, humming as she set a plate in front of him. "There. It's warm."

She carried her own plate to the opposite side of the table, watching him as she began to eat.

He sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the food, before slowly peeling off his mask and laying it gingerly at the edge of the table.

She knew he didn't like being looked at without his facial shield, but she couldn't help it. The most she could manage was not to stare open-mouthed at his startlingly handsome features.

He ate quietly as she cheerfully chatted about her day. Although his expression remained blank and unchanged throughout the conversation, she knew that he was listening intently. He was a man that let nothing get by him, no matter how seemingly insignificant. 

Nothing.

"I've made dessert, too. Pie. Kind of an apple-blackberry mix. Would you like a piece?"

He said nothing, but she could almost swear she saw a hint of a smile twitch at the corner of his lips.

Smiling herself, she collected their empty plates and brought them into the kitchen, returning a few minute later with a dish of pie for each of them.

As they ate, she looked out the window at the darkening sky. A few stars were beginning to show, and crickets were beginning to sing in a low hum outside the door.

It's a beautiful night, she thought to herself. She was so lost in her thoughts that she jumped a little when a deep, low voice drifted to her from across the table.

"May I have another piece?"

She looked at him and blinked, a little startled. It was so rare to hear him speak that each time she heard it, it was like hearing the voice of a stranger.

"Of course", she said, getting up and taking his plate back into the kitchen, cutting another slice.

"Here you go," she said, setting it back down in front of him.

He didn't answer, but this time he DID smile at her; a wide smile that lit his eyes and curved his full lips. 

When he smiled, the years fell away from his face, making him look impossibly young, and dauntingly handsome.

It was a little difficult, looking at him like that and resisting the urge to throw herself at him, to kiss him, ravage him. 

But she knew how uncomfortable he was with emotional and romantic displays like that, so for the most part she always stuck to very brief, chaste actions with him. Innocent things like cheek-kissing and goodbye hugs. 

It was hard to stick with this, especially as her feelings grew stronger; but she was able to manage it anyway. If they were ever going to get beyond this point, HE would have to be the one to initiate it, not her.

As it was, on the few occasions he had spent the night, they DID share a bed; however nothing significant ever happened.

Yet even with the absence of much-desired (at least on her part) sexual activity, she was quite fond of the nights they shared. There was a level of comfort there, of intimacy that she had never had with anyone else before. 

She had tried to seduce him, early on, by wearing the skimpiest lingerie imaginable when laying next to him. Yet it seemed that no matter what she wore, or how she acted, his demeanor never changed. So she gave that up and just contented herself with sleeping next to him. She loved to lay curled into him, feeling his warm body and enjoying his light, sweet breath tickling her face.

Best of all, she liked watching him sleep. It was the only time he ever looked truly peaceful; at ease with himself and the world. Only when he was asleep was she able to reach out and softly stroke the beautiful lines and planes of his face.

"Are you staying the night?", she asked casually, beginning to rise to take his empty pie plate.

He nodded, and she quickly grabbed his plate and took it into the kitchen, trying to hide the huge, lovesick smirk that was rapidly spreading over her face.

"You make yourself comfortable in there," she called out to him. "I'm going to wash up these dishes."

She heard the sound of his chair scraping back, and his heavy boots clomping across her floor towards the couch. The tv cut on as she turned her attention to the dishes. 

She took special care to clean his knife, running it under the scalding hot water and spraying it down with a special stainless steel cleaner. 

Finally she held it up to her eyes, liking the way her face looked reflected in the shining blade.

She ran her finger lightly along the edge, frowning a little as she noticed that the point was getting a bit dull. She'd have to get him a new knife soon, one that was suitably sharp. 

Maybe for Christmas.

Wiping her hands, she made her way back into the living room, sitting next to the quiet man on the couch.

The local news was on, reporter Donald Friar standing outside that evenings newest crime scene, where in the background multiple bodies in zipped black bags were being loaded into ambulances. Donald looked visibly shaken as he spoke passionately to the cameras.

" . . . and the death toll continues to rise. Police are offering a reward to whoever can give them information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for these crimes. Forensic specialists now theorize that . . . "

She glanced up to see what his reaction was, watching the news.

But his eyes weren't focused on the tv.

He was watching HER.

He was looking at her with an expression she had seen often, from him, these past few weeks. A mix of wonder, of confusion. Of mild suspicion.

She knew he was watching her right now to see what /her/ reaction was, to the images on the news.

So she did the only thing she could think to do.

She scooted over closer to him, timidly laying her head on his broad shoulder. 

He stiffened for a moment; then he reached out and put his arm around her, gently, holding her closely.

She smiled as she laid her other arm across his chest.

There were plenty of things to be worried about, plenty to be scared of. 

But she didn't want to think of any of that, for now.

Right now she was just content to sit here on the couch, cuddled up to her Prince Charming.


	2. Chapter 2

"You're positive you want to do this?"

He looked at her, silently nodding.

"I just don't understand WHY. Now, I don't want you to think I'm saying this because I don't want you with me, because I do. I like spending time with you more than anything."

"But, honey, this isn't like you, at all."

He didn't respond; instead, he reached over and patted her knee with his cold fingers, rubbing firm, slow circles all around it.

She shivered a little, temporarily distracted. 

"I don't suppose I could convince you to move your hand up a few inches, could I?"

He immediately took his hand away and placed it back in his own lap. He turned and looked out the windows, watching the scenery unfold past them.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Worth a shot."

She focused back on the road, trying to quell the fears in her head.

They were headed into the country, to her grandmother Sylvia's house. 

Her grandmother was living all alone in small house in the middle of nowhere, and Nicole tried to visit at least once a month, cooking for her, cleaning, and helping with whatever else she could.

When she had told Michael this, in order to explain her upcoming absence, he had shocked her by stating, quietly, "I'll come with you."

All that week, whenever she saw him, nothing she said could get him to change his mind.

Part of her was thrilled at the idea of actually going somewhere with him; of getting to spend more than one night at a time in his company.

The other part of her was, reasonably, scared.

She didn't want to think that he could, possibly, harm her grandmother. But the thought was there, grounded in solid reasoning, and it wouldn't go away.

And if he were to "try" anything, would she "try" to stop him?

She found herself a little disgusted, that her mind was more focused on possible ways to hide her grandmothers body, rather than how to prevent said body from needing to be hidden.

And even if nothing happened, how was she going to explain this man to her grandma? This tall, heavily built man who watched everything with eagle-sharp eyes and rarely spoke a word?

At least he isn't wearing his mask, she thought to herself, glancing over at him.

She had gotten him new clothes before they left, making her best guess as to his sizes and praying that the things actually fit.

Which they did.

It was odd, seeing him out of his usual "work" clothes, but a pleasing picture nonetheless. 

She had (correctly) assumed that he wouldn't be a collar or tie man under any circumstances, so she had opted for a plain white muscle tee underneath a buttoned black and white flannel shirt, with a pair of black jeans.

In the suitcase in the backseat there was another dark pair of jeans and a handful pajama bottoms and solid-colored t shirts, enough to last the duration of their 3 day visit.

He had also allowed her to pull his long brown hair back from his face and into a single ponytail, held back with a small black tie.

He almost passed for an ordinary, everyday guy.

Almost.

About an hour later they pulled up to her grandma's house. Michael pulled the suitcase from the backseat and followed her down the drive and up the steps.

A small, lovely older woman opened the door cautiously, peering out into light.

"It's me, grandma," Nicole said, grinning.

Sylvia opened the door wider and stepped out, rushing out to embrace her granddaughter.

"Nicky! What a surprise! I wasn't expecting you to come see me!"

"I figure I'm long overdue", Nicole replied, giving her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

"And who is this young man?", her grandma asked, turning towards Michael, who had been standing and silently watching their exchange.

"This is my -- boyfriend, Michael. I hope you don't mind I brought him along?"

"Of course not, dear! Anyone important to you is welcome here."

Michael extended his hand to her, and she looked at it, and moved in to embrace him instead.

"First thing you've got to know about me, young man, is that I'm a hugger!"

Michael stiffened, looking surprised before he awkwardly returned her embrace, patting her timidly on the back.

"Michael is, um, not much of a talker, grandma," said Nicole, glancing at him.

Sylvia smiled, pulling away from him and turning to lead them into the house. "Reminds me of your grandpa. He was never one for words, either.

-.-.-.-

Half an hour later found them unpacked in Sylvia's tiny spare bedroom, and joining her in the kitchen for tea.

"I wish I had more to offer you both; but you've always liked tea, right, Nicky?"

"Grandma," she said, frowning, "You have almost no food, here! When's the last time you went to the store?"

"Well, normally, I have the neighbor girl from down the road go for me, but she's been busy with school this week. I didn't want to bother her."

"What have you been eating?"

"Oh, I have a few things here and there," she replied, gesturing towards the cabinets.

Nicole opened then, frowning even harder. 

There was a box of saltine crackers, a quarter of a loaf of bread, several opened bags of hard candy, and a handful of soup cans.

Nicole shook her head, sighing. No wonder her grandma looked so skinny.

"I'll tell you what, grandma, I'm going to run to the store and pick some things up for you."

"Oh, that's so sweet of you, Nicky! But you don't have to do that."

"I know, grandma," she said as she kissed the older woman's cheek, "But I WANT to."

She turned and grabbed her purse from the kitchen table. "You relax and we'll be back in about an hour. Come on, Michael."

Michael, who had been sitting silently at the table, watching them, shook his head at her.

"You--want to stay here? With grandma?", she asked him, trying to hide the anxiety in her voice.

He nodded.

"Um, okay, then. Grandma you don't mind if Michael stays here with you?"

"Of course not, dear!", she smiled at her granddaughter. "I'll enjoy the company; it's been so long since I've had anyone to talk to."

Nicole nodded, walking slowly towards the door. "Alright; well, I'll be back in an hour," she repeated, casting another glance at her boyfriend.

She walked out the door and to the car, feet crunching slowly in the gravel driveway as she tried to calm the nervous butterflies flooding her stomach.

-.-.-.-.-.-

She opened the back door slowly, heart thudding in her chest as she placed the two bags of food on the counter.

"Grandma?", she called, dropping her keys on the table. "I'm--back."

No answer.

She could hear the sound of the tv going in the darkened living room, but nothing else.

She stepped through the hallway and peeked into her grandma's bedroom.

No one there.

Nor was she in the guest room, or the bathroom.

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself to go into the living room. 

Michael was sitting calmly on the couch, staring straight ahead at the tv.

She walked around it, bracing her mind for whatever she might see, not knowing what to expect.

It certainly wasn't her grandmother, sound asleep and leaning comfortably against Michael's shoulder, snoring lightly.

Nicole stood there for a moment, relief flooding through her, looking down at both of them and not really sure what to say.

Michael looked back at her and tilted his head slightly, taking in her expression.

Nodding towards the sleeping woman, he said, quietly,

"She was tired."

"She certainly was.", Nicole answered with a smile. "If you're okay there, I'm going to go start dinner."

He nodded, and she walked with an easier step back into the kitchen.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She awoke with a start.

It was early, close to 4am, and dark. And cold.

She shivered, pulling the covers closer around herself. She turned over, putting out her hand, intending to pull herself closer into Michael--but her hand touched nothing.

He wasn't there.

She sat up, drawing the blanket up to her chin. 

Maybe he's just in the bathroom, she thought, yawning loudly.

She waited a good 20 minutes before deciding that wasn't the case.

She got up and padded across the room, stepping out into the hallway.

She opened the door of her grandmas room gently, peeking inside. The older woman was sound asleep, curled up in a small ball underneath heavy blankets.

She tiptoed into the living room and turned on the tv, immediately turning the volume down as low as it was possible for her to still hear.

I might as well watch something, I don't think I could go to sleep now.

But eventually she did nod off, leaning her head back against the soft couch and drifting away.

The next time she woke up, it was morning. Bright sunshine flooded her eyes, causing her to flinch.

She stretched out, stiff, and noticed a heavy weight leaning into her side. She looked over and saw that Michael was slumped against her, sleeping peacefully.

Gently, so as not to wake him, she slid out from him and laid his head down on one of the sofa pillows, spreading the blanket over him.

She went into the kitchen, where her grandma was bustling around, cheerfully humming as she made pancakes.

"Good morning, my love," she said, coming over to kiss Nicole on the cheek. "I saw you were asleep on the couch earlier; I was going to wake you up but Michael said you looked really peaceful, and we shouldn't disturb you."

"He SAID that?", she asked skeptically, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"He did. He's really a very sweet man. I--ran into him this morning, when he came back home. You owe me a new kitchen knife, by the way." 

"W-what?", Nicole asked, a little taken aback.

"You owe me a new knife, sweetheart. I'm really not very picky, honey, but I can't use a knife once I know it's been inside somebody's entrails. An odd quirk, I know."

Nicole sat silently, unsure of how to respond, what to SAY.

Her grandma brought a plate pancakes over to the table, setting it in front of her with a bottle of syrup.

"You don't have to say anything, honey. I know. I understand. Your grandfather was quite the same way, you know."

"The same as--Michael?"

"Oh, yes. Very alike, those two. Strong, handsome, not much for conversations. I lived with your grandpa for nearly 20 years before I discovered what he was doing. All those nights slipping out and coming back just before sunrise; the bloody clothes, the missing garden and garage tools. The constant news reports of missing or murdered individuals from town . . . why do you think we chose to live out here, so far away from everyone?"

Nicole shook her head in disbelief, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"So--you're telling me that grandpa was a, um, a--"

"A very good man," her grandma supplied, a wistful smile on her face. "He had flaws, of course, but so does everyone else. I couldn't have asked for a better husband, or a better father for my children."

"Loving someone is like making a decision. Not a decision to turn a blind eye towards the things that bother you, but to learn to accept them."

"That boy in there cares about you, you know. He may not say much but he doesn't really need to; it's all there in his eyes."

Nicole gave her grandma a shaky smile. "I'm glad you told me these things, grammy. I needed to hear them; I've been so worried lately whether or not our relationship was going to work."

"A word of caution, though: learn to protect yourself. Not necessarily from him, but from everything. From every news report that bothers you, every headline that makes you flinch. And be careful. VERY careful. The both of you. His line of work is a tricky one, full of traps and pitfalls. He'll need your support, and your brain, if he's to continue at it."

Nicole nodded solemnly. "I understand, grandma."

"Good," she replied, leaning over to kiss her forehead. "Now eat your pancakes; they're getting cold."

-.-.-.-.-

The weekend passed much too quickly, and before Nicole knew it, it was time for them to leave.

"I'll be back again in a few weeks, grandma," she says as she hugged Sylvia tightly to her.

"I'll be looking forward to it. And I certainly hope to see YOU again, young man," she said as she turned towards Michael.

He bent down and hugged the woman, briefly, before going to put the suitcase in the car.

"Goodbye, sweetheart. And good luck."

"Thanks, Gramma," Nicole said, giving her a final kiss before going to join Michael at the car.

They rode along the tree-lined roads in silence for a while, before Nicole began to speak.

"I'm really glad you went with me. I think my grandma liked you."

She sighed, rubbing at her eyes.

"I worry about her being alone out there, like that. So many bad things can happen when you're older and alone like that."

"But maybe I'm worried over nothing. She's far from helpless, after all. And she could always call me if she needed help with something."

"When I was growing up, my mom worked all the time, and my dad was hardly ever in our lives. I spent most of my time, between the ages of 5-12, at her house. I guess I really think of her as more a mother than a grandmother."

"She's the one who taught me how to cook. Or at least, she tried to. For some reason my dinners never turn out as good as hers. I DO think that my desserts are pretty good, though. Especially pies. There's this one recipe she taught me when I was younger, for this wonderful chocolate-coconut cream pie. I hadn't had any in years. I'll have to try and make it for us sometime soon."

She looked over at him, to see if he was listening.

He was turned towards her, his neck tilted slightly, watching her.

Even after 3 straight days of it, she was still blown away by the thrill of seeing his bare face for such long periods of time. It was going to get hard to get used to the mask again, once they got back.

She turned back towards the road, driving with one hand, the other in her lap.

She zoned out for a while, listening to the sound of wind rush past the window, when a light pressure on her free hand startled her. She looked down.

His hand was on hers, chilly fingers slowly lacing together with her own. 

He squeezed their hands together lightly, continuing to look directly at her.

She bit her lower lip, smiling shyly before she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

They spent the rest of the trip home in companionable silence, fingers remaining comfortably intertwined the entire way.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman was really beginning to irritate him.

Her voice had a nasally whine to it that was so much worse than the normal tearful pleadings he dealt with.

And this one wasn't even pleading; she was more or less ordering him to stop, to leave her house, to, quote, "get the hell out of here you psychopath!"

He quickly disarmed her, yanking away the baseball bat she had in her hands and flinging it across the room hard enough so that it went through the plaster of the wall and stuck there, sticking out like a pointing metal finger.

He had already incapacitated her husband, or boyfriend, or whoever it was that had been laying next to this woman, and now he turned his attention towards her, smiling to himself underneath his mask. He knew the man wasn't dead, only stunned, but he would have to wait his turn.

If it was one thing that Michael was, it was a gentleman.

Ladies First.

He backed her up into the corner and held her there, with one strong hand enclosed around her throat. He brought his knife up with the other and plunged it through her mouth, hearing the metal click against her teeth as it sliced through to the back of her head.

He looked at her and waited. She let out one muffled scream, blood spurting out from her mouth in a thick stream. Then she fell silent, eyes still open and already glazing over, all the tenseness going out of her body.

He tilted his head and looked at her, bearing down on the handle of his knife and pulling it back out.

He released his grip on her throat and she fell in a messy heap to the floor.

A loud sound caused him to turn around.

The man had a small grey gun and was firing at him, yelling obscenities with each sharp crack.

His anger made his shots go mostly wild, although he did manage to graze Michael in his left arm with a bullet.

Michael stopped, his hand going to his burning appendage. His own blood wetted his fingers, and he took them and drew straggly red lines down the front of his mask.

In front of him, the man was desperately pulling the trigger of his gun, enraged when all it would do is produce hollow clicking noises.

Michael paused, then he dropped his knife and grabbed the baseball bat that he had thrown into the wall a few moments earlier, white plaster falling around the hole it created when he pulled it out.

He approached the man slowly, raising the baseball bat above his head. In his panic the man did not attempt to run, only throwing his hands up in front of his face in a pathetic shield.

Michael brought the bat down hard, enjoying the satisfying crunch of hearing it split the man's skull wide open. He brought it down several more times, again and again, until the man's feeble twitching ceased and he was just laying there, blood and bits of brain leaking into the carpet. 

Still, he couldn't resist bringing the bat down one final time, this time hard enough to split it in two. He looked at the jagged halves of the stick and planted one half into the man's guts. The other he tossed aside casually, listening to the light thud it made hitting the carpet.

He turned around and picked up his knife from where he had dropped it on the floor, looking around him.

Only two people in this house?

Disappointing.

Very disappointing.

He had hiked all the way out here, and chosen this house in particular because it looked large enough to hold quite a handful of people.

He paced through the rooms now, methodically checking every nook and cranny for anyone who might be hiding. He checked under every bed, in every bathtub, opened every closet and pantry door. Nothing.

He sighed to himself in frustration, tapping the sticky blade of his knife against his thigh.

It was too late to try and find more people now. The sun would be rising in about an hour, and he wanted to make it back home before then.

Or, at least, back to Nicole's little house, which he was rapidly beginning to consider his own.

He had stopped at one other house before he came to this one, about a mile south; but had had to leave again. The house contained mostly children, with one kindly-looking older woman seemingly solely in charge of all of them.

He had stood outside in the darkness for a long time, watching the kids laugh and shout and play with one another.

After everyone went to bed, he crept, unnoticed, into the house and stood in a corner of the children's bedroom, watching them sleep.

One little girl woke up and saw him, silhouetted in the inky blackness, her eyes widening in terror.

He stepped slowly out of the shadows and looked down at her, feeling her fear bleed out into the air around them.

Slowly, he put his finger to his lips in a 'shhh' gesture, and after a moment, she did the same, smiling timidly up at him.

He paused, before coming closer to her and pulling her covers more tightly around her little body, tucking her in. He smoothed out her hair and said, in his quiet voice, 

"Go back to sleep."

She had nodded and closed her eyes, little hands holding her pillow.

Without another word he turned and left that house, hiking through the woods before he had one across this one.

Well, at least he managed to get some work done tonight.

Even if it was nowhere near as much as he wanted.

He left, now, exiting through the back door and walking out into the woods, his boots scuffling through the leaves, stones and fallen tree branches littering the ground. 

A sliver of a moon was hanging lowly in the west, rapidly fading in color due to the coming of the sun. A few bright stars remained twinkling here and there, lending spots of silver to the milky-blue sky.

He stopped for a minute, gazing upwards and listening to the chorus of different birds singing and calling out to each other in the trees, announcing the arrival of another dawn.

He got back to the house and walked over to the small well at the edge of the backyard, stripping as he did so.

In the past few months he had found it easier to dispose of his bloody clothing by tossing them down the endless well, rather than him or Nicole trying to clean the gore out of each outfit. 

Whenever he went out he wore a new jumpsuit, and when he came back he would dispose of the old one down the dark eye of the well, watching as they fell in a red and blue heap into the blackness.

Luckily the jumpsuit well protected the plain t-shirt and shorts he sure underneath, so he didn't have to change that each time.

He reached underneath cabinet below the kitchen sink and brought out wrap bandages and rubbing alcohol that Nicole kept under there, for him.

He examined the spot on his arm where he had been shot. The bullet had only clipped him, tearing a line down the skin but not entering it. Which was good. Pulling out bullets was a horribly messy business, and Michael didn't want to ruin Nicole's clean kitchen tiles.

He rubbed a bit of alcohol over the spot, disinfecting it, before carefully wrapping a bit of bandage around the split skin.

His mask and boots were the real problem, and he spent about 30 minutes each morning sitting at the kitchen table and rubbing each thing with hot water and cleaning fluids, until they looked good as new.

He did this now, silently sitting in the dark room, the only light coming from the pale early-morning sun through the windows, as he cleaned the streaks off of his mask and boots.

Once satisfied, he walked quietly into the hallway and placed them, carefully, into a small black chest sitting on the ground of the closet, on top of nearly folded jumpsuits.

Realizing the he probably didn't smell the best, he headed towards the bathroom, turning the shower on and adjusting the water until it was nearly scalding hot, before shedding his clothes and stepping inside.

He meticulously scrubbed himself all over with soap, finding himself humming a few bars of the song Nicole had been singing to herself a few days ago.

Once satisfied that he was clean, he stood a few moments longer, head resting against the tiles, watching as the sudsy water was swept away down the hole.

Eventually he forced himself out and back into his clothes. He headed down the hallway towards Nicole's bedroom, turning the knob and softly, softly pushing open the door, so as not to wake her.

He stood at the foot of her large bed, silently, looking down at her.

She had kicked her way out of the covers and was laying on her side, head buried in the soft pillows, across her side of the bed.

She was wearing a pair of silky black shorts with a little strappy silk top, also black. Lace ruffles adorned the edges of the top, lining her chest and shoulders. The top had crept up in her sleep, revealing a strip of her flat pale stomach. Her brown hair streamed out behind her in little waves, decorating the plain white pillows.

He tilted his head, pursing his lips as his eyes roamed over her sleeping body.

She was--beautiful. Quite beautiful.

He quietly slipped into his side of the bed, grabbing the blankets and pulling them up so that they were covering both of them.

He hesitated, then he scooted over to her and wrapped both arms gently around her little waist, tucking his chin into her hair.

She flinched a little in her sleep, then smiled, pulling his arms tighter around her. 

"Michael . . .", she mumbled in a dream-like voice, before falling back to sleep.

He smiled, kissing the back of her neck, before nodding off into dreams of his own.


	4. Chapter 4

"Just swallow it down fast. It tastes like shit, but it'll make you feel better."

Michael made a face, grasping the little plastic cup that Nicole held out to him. He grimaced as he swallowed the awful bitter liquid inside.

"There, now; that wasn't so bad, was it?"

She went back into the kitchen to get him another hot cup of honey-laced tea, stopping to pick up all the kleenexes lying around the base of the coffee table first.

Michael was sick, struck down with one hell of a cold as a result of going out to work in the dead of winter wearing nothing but his flimsy jumpsuit.

Nicole had been badgering him to change up his attire to better match the weather, or to at least wear warmer undergarments beneath; but her pleas fell on indifferent ears.

She had come home from work two nights ago to find him dozing in a chair, which was odd considering that was usually the time he was getting ready to "leave for work". 

When she got closer to him, she was surprised to find that his normally chilly body was burning up with fever, and he was coughing quite frequently in his sleep.

With tea, medicine, and rest, he had improved a little since then, but was still very groggy and out of it.

Nicole enjoyed having him at home during the night for once, and they spent lots of time together on the couch watching old movies.

Nicole brought him his second cup of tea and set it down in front of him on the table, looking at him.

"You're sure you'll be fine while I go to work?"

He nodded.

"Positive? Because I can always call in."

He shook his head.

"Okay then. I've left you some soup in a container in the fridge if you get hungry later."

She leaned over the couch and kissed his forehead. "I'll be home around 6, okay?"

He nodded, and she turned and went out the door, locking it behind her.

Michael spent the afternoon in a foggy haze, the medicine making him tired, going back and forth between watching tv and reading some of Nicole's books.

Around 4pm, as it was beginning to get dark, he heard slight noise coming from the back door.

He turned off the tv and moved silently into the dining room, eyes focused on the kitchen.

A man stood outside the back kitchen door, using a screwdriver to jiggle around the lock to attemp to open it.

Michael smiled to himself, amused.

A robber? Really?

The man finally got the lock open, sticking the screwdriver in his pocket and walking slowly into the kitchen.

He looked around the dark room carefully, eyes intent, trying to confirm that the house was empty.

Satisfied that he was alone, he crept into the living room, methodically placing any items he felt were of value into a small bag.

He walked back into the kitchen, preparing to leave.

A sudden force knocked him over, hard, sending him head first into the wall.

He picked himself up and looked around in a panic.

Before he could register what was happening, Michael was behind him, ripping the screwdriver from his pocket and stabbing it with brutal strength into his right eye.

The man screamed as the eyeball collapsed in the socket, blood and pus running from the black hole and down his cheek.

Shrieking, he attempted to run, one hand covering his steaming eye. Michael grabbed the collar of his shirt and spun him around, one handed, bringing his arm down in an arc and stabbing his knife through the man's sternum.

The man's screams grew softer, his struggles weaker, as Michael slashed into his skin repeatedly. At last he lay still, bleeding from several different wounds into the floor.

Michael stood, looking down at him. 

He took the man's bag of almost-stolen goods and dumped it on the living room couch.

Then he took the man, and the bag, hoisting both across his shoulder, and headed for the well in the backyard.

He dropped the man head first down the hole, enjoying the meaty thud his body made when it reached the bottom.

He went back into the house and got out Nicole's mop, a bucket of hot water and floor cleaner. He set to work mopping the blood off the kitchen floor and cleaning the small splatters off the walls and table.

He was thankful he had killed the man in here, where the gore could easily be washed away. 

Blood can be a real bitch to get out of a carpet, or cloth furniture.

He dumped the water once he was done, taking special care to clean the sink and rinse out the mop, so that no possible trace of the mess was left behind.

He cleaned his knife and put it back in his special chest in the hall closet.

Then he went into the living room and took the dumped items from the couch one by one, replacing them to their proper spot.

He was just settling down on the couch again, turning the tv back on, when Nicole came in the front door.

"Hey, I'm back," she said, dropping her keys on the table by the door and coming over to him. "How are you feeling?"

She took his face between her hands, feelingly his cheeks and forehead. "Your face seems a little less hot. Well, no, I take that back," she said with a little grin, "Your face is ALWAYS hot; but your temperature seems to have gone down."

She dropped her hands, preparing to pull away, when he reached out and caught them, pulling her down into a kiss.

When he let go, she moved away slowly, slightly startled. He had never done that before; they had never kissed on the lips before.

"What was that for?", she asked, a confused smile on her face.

He looked at her a long time, tilting his head to the side.

In his quiet voice, he stated, simply, 

"You"."

One word, but she knew exactly what he meant.

She nodded at him, unable to keep the wide grin from spreading over her face.

"That sounds like a good reason to me."

She sat down beside him on the couch, leaning against him silently for a few minutes.

"I was thinking of making chicken Parmesan for dinner," she mumbled against his shoulder. "Does that sound good to you?"

He nodded, and she got off the sofa and headed into the kitchen.

"Michael!", she called out, delight in her voice. "Did you mop and clean in here? Everything looks so white and shiny! That's so sweet! Thank you!"

"You're welcome."


	5. Chapter 5

Nicole watched as Michael moved her leather recliner across the room, effortlessly, placing it by the southern window.

"There.", she said, as she tilted it slightly to the left.

"Now it's perfect."

The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of emotions for Nicole.

On a cold Tuesday afternoon she had received a phone call from some thick-accented legal represent, informing her that her beloved Grandma Sylvia had passed away.

Feeling as though she was dreaming, she heard herself asking about the cause of death, and was met with some long winded explanation of viral pneumonia and a long hospital stay.

Pneumonia?, she thought numbly to herself. Why wouldn't she have called and told me this? Why didn't I call HER, or go see her, to check up on her?

She was thinking these things, and a dozen more, when the lawyer or whoever it was that had phoned her informed Nicole that her grandmother had left her something in the will, and she should make an appointment at the earliest convenience to come and talk to him.

"Appointment" came out sounding like "ap-aht-mint".

She had driven herself up there, waving off Michael's quiet insistence that he come with her, saying that she needed time alone to process and to think.

She arranged for her grandmother to be buried on her property, knowing that she would never want to leave her home. 

She was her grandma's only living relative, so she, and the family that lived about two miles up the road and knew her grandma a little, were the only ones in attendance at the informal service.

She was stony-faced as she listened to the words of the preacher, and showed no emotion when the two men hired to dig the grave began to shovel dirt over the coffin, sealing up the earth and leaving nothing but a fresh mound and a tiny headstone behind.

It was only later, sitting in her grandma's small kitchen, looking at the noodles and beef casserole dish the neighbors had given her, that she began to cry. 

Hot, helpless tears streaming down her face and staining her shirt.

She laid her head down on the table and stayed there, crying off and on, the entire night.

The next morning she sat, tired and stiff-necked, in the lawyers office, a man by the name of Mr. Vichem. He shuffled papers around, looking for her grandmother's will. 

There was a bite of powdered donut hanging out of his fat mouth, and Nicole felt as though she would either start to cry, or stab him, if he didn't either eat it or put it down soon.

"Here it is," he drawled, mercifully putting the donut on his desk. "It's all pretty straight forward. "I, Sylvia Pritchard, being of sound blah blah blah, hereby bequeath my property, located at blah blah to my granddaughter Miss Nicole Pritchard, of blah blah, as well as a sum of $25,000 in Savings."

Nicole sat, stunned. The--house? Her grandma left her the house?

"She--owned the house? I wasn't aware of that; I thought she and my grandpa had rented that house."

"Oh, no, it's all in the documents here; they've owned that house for better than 10 years."

"Huh," she said, surprised. "And the money. She lived so frugally I would never have dreamt that she had so much stored up."

"She didn't, really," he said absently, turning some pages. "Apparently last month she went to the bank and converted a handful of old savings bonds into their cash equivalent, and deposited the money into a new savings account."

Nicole frowned, wondering why she had thought to do something like that. Had she known the end was near? If so, why hadn't she called her granddaughter?

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

"So, anyway, if you want the house and the money there are some papers you have to sign, and a different lawyer to see in order to transfer your name to the deed."

She nodded, standing up in a fluid motion. "Well, thank you," she said, shaking his hand. "I need a few days to talk this over with my boyfriend. Can I get back to you by the end of the week?"

"Of course," he said, nodding at her. He handed her a small business card, which she tucked in her purse. "I'll be awaiting your call, Ms. Pritchard."

She had driven straight home, not stopping once during the 6 hour drive, and arrived back at her own little house just before dawn.

Michael was out, still, so she sat down in the kitchen and waited for him.

He came in eventually, having already visited the well, stripped down to his t-shirt and shorts.

He opened the back door, mask in one hand and knife in the other, both slightly bloody, and stopped short when he saw her.

He walked in quietly, dropping the knife and mask into the sink and going to take the seat opposite her at the table, looking at her.

She explained to him the situation, speaking softly, fighting against her fatigue.

"I'd have to relocate for my job, because 5 hours one way and back is a bit too much, but I don't think that'd be hard to do. And I figure with the savings account money, if I budget it carefully, it'll be enough to pay property taxes on the house, and any necessary maintenance, for at least a few years."

Now she paused, glancing over at him.

"Of course, if we went, it might be harder for YOU, in terms of 'work'. You remember what it was like the last time we were out there, right? How far it is from everyone else?"

He nodded.

"You'd have to do quite a lot of hiking every night to, um, 'go to work'. But on the other hand, it is nice and secluded, and cozy. Maybe be a pleasant change from a place like this, with the traffic and the noise and the nosy neighbors."

"I don't know," she continued, shrugging her shoulders. She looked into his face. "What do you think we should do?"

He looked at her, how tired she seemed, how sad.

He reached across the table and took her hands into his, squeezing a little. Quietly, his deep voice barely above a whisper, he said,

"I missed you."

She smiled immediately, and blushed, some of the tenseness going out of her face.

"I missed you, too," she said, as she gently withdrew her hands from his. "But that's not what I asked you."

He looked at her a long time, tilting his head, before speaking again, a small smile on his face.

"Let's go."

She smiled back, before standing and going to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

"Okay. Let's go."

That had been a week ago, and they were just now finishing up the last touches of moving in.

She hadn't brought most of her own furniture with her, as her grandma's nicely filled the place, but she did bring along all of her other things, like clothes, books, and the like.

Before they had left the old house for good, Nicole had hired someone to come and pour cement down the well in the backyard, sealing it and hiding the horrifying mess down in the darkness.

"You know, it's not often in this day 'n age you see an actual well in someone's backyard," the man had said, watching the sludge fall into the hole. "Ya sure you wanna cover this up? Could be worth somethin' to the right property buyer."

"I'm sure," she had said, folding her arms and leaning against the fence. "Some things are too dangerous to be kept out in the open like that. Better to cover them up."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She woke up with a start, sweating.

She had been having the most awful dream, filled with dark shadows and glowing eyes and screaming, so much screaming that it was hard to believe it wasn't real.

She turned over and looked at the clock. 2am. She knew she should really try and fall back asleep, as she had to wake up in a few hours for work, but she just couldn't.

The screams still rang in her ears, flooding her mouth with a sour adrenaline taste.

She sighed, getting up and going into the kitchen, to get herself a glass of water.

She filled her cup from the sink and gulped it down, greedily, spilling some down the front of her pajama top.

She filled her glass again and took it over to the kitchen table, wincing as her mostly bare legs came into contact with the metal of the chair.

A few moments later, a loud scream made her jump inside her skin, causing her to spill her water glass all over the table towards herself.

Barely noticing as the chilly water splashed over her lap, she stood up numbly, going towards the dark windows and peeking out of the curtain.

She could just barely make out the shape of the large shed at the edge of the backyard, and a shadowy figure moving rapidly back and forth in front of the entrance.

She heard another scream, followed by a loud thud.

Heart pounding, unable to resist, she crept out the door and tiptoed slowly up to the shed, bare feet leaving wet footprints in the dewy grass.

She stood in the entrance and squinted, her eyes gradually adjusting to the moonlit room.

Michael was there, holding up a large, bearded man by the neck and hurling him like a rag-doll into the far wall. The man collided with the wood hard enough to shake the entire shed, the top of his head slamming into a shelf full of gardening tools.

The shelf collapsed and fell on top of him, all of the instruments falling in a graceless pile over his limp body.

Michael was aware of Nicole standing behind him, watching, but he made no move to halt his attack.

Stalking toward the man, who was now blindly trying to pick himself up and crawl away, he pulled his knife out of his pocket.

Dropping to his knees, Michael drew his blade in a clean sweep across the length of the man's throat, watching with interest as his screams turned into clogged, bloody gurgles.

He then proceeded to plunge his blade repeatedly into the man's back, listening as his ribs splintered and blood flew from the squirting wounds and splattered the wall behind them.

When he was dead, Michael got back to his feet and turned around, bracing himself for Nicole's reaction.

He expected shock, tears at the very least. Perhaps even running and screaming in horror.

The expression on her face was so unexpected that he froze. It was as if the wires that carried thoughts to his brain had all short circuited, leaving him temporarily unable to think.

She looked--happy.

Nearly ecstatic. Scarily so.

And something else, something he had never seen personally, up close, on a woman's face before. Something he would not have been able to name even if he had the word for it, or the experience behind it.

It was lust.

And it was desire.

It almost appeared as though she was about to burst into laughter.

A split second later, she did just that, her airy, tinkling laugh ringing out like a bell.

He regarded her warily, knife still clutched in his hand, tilting his head.

Still laughing, she walked up to him and pried his knife out of his hand, dropping it to the ground.

She stood on her tiptoes, peeling his mask upwards so that just his lips were exposed. 

She grabbed hold of the back of his head and yanked him down towards her, locking his lips into a passionate kiss.

Surprised, he tried to pull away; but her hands stubbornly held his neck and refused to let him go.

After a moment, he returned her kiss, groaning softly with pleasure at the new, unfamiliar sensations flooding his body.

The feeling increased when she boldly bit down on his lower lip, hard enough so that he tasted blood.

He lifted her up with his strong arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as he carried her to a dusty pallet laying on the floor underneath the window.

He laid her down gently, feeling the lust rise up in his loins but unsure of how to proceed.

As if reading his mind, she leaned up and pulled him down on top of her, kissing him as she fumbled with his buckle. She stripped off his belt, pushing his pants down to his knees. 

She managed to wiggle out of her underwear and slide them, as well as her little silk shorts, down to her ankles. She tried to control her heavy breathing as as she shifted herself underneath him.

"Position yourself above me," she whispered in his ear, guiding his hips into place with her hands, "and push into me."

He hesitated a moment, then he thrust himself forward quickly, too quickly; causing a burning stab to travel up and down her thighs.

She let out her breathe in a low hiss, the pain momentarily contorting her face.

He was big. Bigger than she expected. It took a few moments for her to adjust to the size, to overcome the panicky feeling of being crushed.

He noticed the look on her face and paused, his eyes full of concern, beginning to lift himself off of her.

"No, no," she whispered between gritted teeth. "It's ok. I'm ok. Just--go a little slower, alright?" 

He looked at her skeptically, tilting his head in confusion.

"Really, I'm fine. Please, keep going," she said, reaching up to lock her hands behind his neck, holding him there.

He moved over her slowly, as she said, keeping a careful watch on her face. It was frustrating at first because she made so many sounds, many of them sounding like cries of pain, and he was reluctant to hurt her any further.

It eventually became clear, however, that the whimpers and moans leaking through her lips are anything but pain. 

She relaxed her muscles and allowed him deeper into her, jerking her hips up, slowly at first, then harder, and harder still, in response to his thrusts.

Once he realized that he wasn't hurting her, he pounded into her with abandon, not saying anything but releasing breathy little grunts into her ear.

She wrapped her legs around his back, holding on for dear life as he drove farther into her.

She felt herself getting close to the edge, and then it tipped over, spreading waves of pleasure so intense that it was nearly agony all over her body. It was only through a tremendous force of will that she was able to keep from screaming, instead leaning up and biting down hard on his shoulder to stay her cries.

He suddenly stiffened, his entire body becoming as rigid as the part that was inside of her, as he reached his orgasm. He chased it through her body, all of his nerves endings firing off at once, crying out softly against the side of her neck.

They lay there for a few minutes, panting, sweaty and spent.

Then he was lifting himself off of her and pulling his pants back on.

She pulled her own pants back up while still laying down.

As she tried to stand, she grimaced at how sore she felt, how weak kneed and wobbly-legged.

And how---GOOD.

Michael saw her struggling to stand and took her hands gently, pulling her to her feet.

As Nicole watched, he went over to the body still laying across the room, moving it into the corner and covering it with an old tarp.

Not really a decent removal, but better than being exposed in the open. He would take care of it for real in the morning.

He then picked up his knife from the ground, wiping the blood off with the edge of his shirt before sticking it in his waistband.

They moved towards the exit, silently, to leave.

Michael glanced at her and noticed she was limping slightly.

Quietly, he asked,

"Did I hurt you?"

She smiled at him, nodding her head.

"Yes. You really did. Thank you."

He looked at her confusedly, seeming as though he was about to ask something else, when she reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Don't worry; we'll have plenty of time to work on it later."


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm so glad you're here, honey. I feel like I haven't had any friends to talk to in a long time. Well, except Michael; and he barely talks."

Both ladies laughed, embracing each other again underneath the clear, cool sky.

They were sitting out in the lawn chairs at the back of the house, in front of a blazing fire pit. A pitcher of mixed drinks stood on a little table between them, along with a variety of candy and junk food.

It was terribly relaxing.

Susan was visiting Nicole a few days, and Nicole couldn't be happier about it. She had been thinking about her old friend for weeks, and called her quite often, trying to arrange a time when the two could get together.

Then two weeks ago Susan's boyfriend had broken up with her, leaving her lonely and angry. She needed an excuse to get away for a while, to clear her head; and Nicole was more than willing to provide that excuse.

She was a little worried, though, when Susan told her that she had told no one, not even her boss, about where she was planning on taking off to.

"That's dangerous," Nicole told her, frowning. "You can see that this is literally in the middle of no where, right? What if you were to get lost coming up here, or your car slid off the road and into a ditch? Nobody would know to contact me about it, or even where to start looking for you."

"Oh, I'm sure it's not as serious as all that", Susan had replied nonchalantly. "Plus it gives that utter prick John a reason to worry about me. Let him think I dropped off the face of the earth and into the arms of some gorgeous mystery man. That'll teach him."

Nicole laughed at that, as Susan continued, "And besides, I DID tell someone. I told the stray cat I've been feeding that hangs around my back door every night. So SOMEONE knows where I am."

"Talking to cats, huh?", Nicole had asked, raising an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound at all like I should be worried about you."

"No, you really shouldn't.", Susan replied, settling back into the lawn chair and taking another sip of her drink. "Speaking of strays, though . . . where'd that boyfriend of YOURS go?"

When Nicole had told Michael that Susan was coming to visit for a few days, he didn't say anything, only listened to her words with mild interest.

Deep down, he was glad, that she would have a temporary companion. He often sensed that she was lonely, and probably in need of spending time with someone a little more 'normal' than himself.

After a first polite handshake and a quiet "Nice to meet you," there hadn't been a whole lot of communication between the two.

Nicole had taken Susan aside in the beginning and explained to him that Michael was, as she put it, 'painfully shy', and rarely spoke more than two words at a time to anyone, not even to her.

"Well, what he lacks in words, he certainly makes up for in looks, doesn't he?", Susan had responded, winking at her.

"I guess," Nicole had said, casually shrugging her shoulders. Although, on this point, she certainly had to agree.

"Oh, probably out in the shed," Nicole now answered Susan's question, taking a long pull of her drink. "When-when he's not at work he likes hanging out in there, tinkering with some of the old machines, trying to get them to work."

She hoped that she sounded convincing enough that Susan would drop the subject. She didn't like lying, but she wanted to make it sound sufficiently dull enough so that Susan never got the urge to wander out there.

So she added, in a casual tone,

"Whatever keeps him happy, I guess. Personally there's so many spiders and mice creeping around in there that I can't stand to get within 50 feet of it."

"Ugh!", Susan groaned, scrunching up her nose in disgust. "What IS it with guys, anyway?"

"Beats the hell out of me, Suze."

-.-.-.-.-.-

Nicole was cooking strips of chicken in a pan, browning each side carefully before turning it over.

She turned to the counter and picked the knife back up, slowly chopping up handfuls of onions, peppers, and tomatoes. 

She was making fajitas, or attempting to. The heat of the peppers was making her eyes run, and she kept forgetting that the juice was all over her hands, making it worse each time she reached up to rub her eyes.

"Are you sure you don't want any help?", Susan asked her, trying to hold back her laughter at Nicole's messy state.

"I'm fine," Nicole insisted, going to flush out her eyes with the water from the sink. "This stuff is done, anyway; I just have to set it all up on the table. Do me a favor, I think Michael is in my bedroom. Can you knock and tell him dinner is ready?"

"Sure," Susan said, leaving the room and walking down the long hall. She stood outside the door and knocked softly. "Michael? Are you in there? Nicole said to tell you that dinner's ready."

No answer.

She knocked louder, but still no answer.

He must have gone out or something, she shrugged to herself, waking away.

Through the kitchen window, she could see the shape of the shed, a shadowy outline against the growing twilight. The inside was brightly lit.

Oh, maybe he's out there, she reasoned. She glanced at Nicole, seeing that she was absorbed in setting up the table of fajita ingredients.

So she slipped quietly out the back door and headed across the grass, closing in on the shed.

She reached the door and looked in, peering around. He wasn't in here, either.

That's odd, she thought to herself. The lights on and everything.

Unable to help herself, she walked further into the room, looking at all the walls. Places as wallpaper all along the sides were articles and pages from old newspapers, dating back some 40 years and more. Crinkled and yellowed with age, they fluttered lightly in the slight breeze coming through the door.

She folded her arms across her chest and read a few of the larger print articles, frowning. Most were about murders, and disappearances from places that she had never heard of before. Some were stories of the same things, but from this town. 

Nicole's grandfather must have been one of those true-crime buffs, she thought to herself, trying to ignore her growing state of unease. I guess everyone's got to have a hobby, right?

She turned to go, and nearly tripped as her foot came into contact with something heavy, pushed halfway underneath one of the work benches.

Something solid, yet soft. Something wrapped up in a paint-streaked tarp.

Curiously, she bent down and slowly unwound the heavy plastic from the object, wondering what was underneath.

She froze as she unwrapped the final piece, unable to take in what she was seeing.

A face stared up at her.

A pale, gray-skinned face with empty blue eyes and dark hair. Hair that was matted down with some clotted, oily substance.

That's blood, her mind whispered quietly into her ear.

Unable to scream, barely able to think, she walked with numb legs out of the shed and back towards the house. About half way there her panic finally penetrated her frozen brain and she began to run, reaching the door quickly and slamming it behind her.

"What's wrong?" Nicole asked her, taking in her frantic expression.

"Nicole, we--we have to call the police. I went out to the shed, looking for Michael. There's a dead body, a fucking DEAD BODY laying on the floor! And it looks fresh, too! I think--I think maybe Michael did it. We've gotta lock the doors before he comes back, and--"

She paused, taking in the expression on Nicole's face. There wasn't a single trace of panic anywhere on her smooth features. Rather, there was calmness. Quiet resignation.

She already knew.

As if to confirm this, Nicole came up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked into Susan's eyes and said, quietly,

"I know."

She stood over Susan, hand digging painfully into her arm, and explained everything that had been going on in her life since she had met Michael.

Susan sat wide-eyed, listening with a churning stomach to her friend's words, hardly able to comprehend the reality of the situation.

Part of the reason Nicole was doing this, was telling her these things, was that she was hoping to gain support from her old friend, and understanding; the way she had received these things from Grandma Sylvia. 

But Susan was incapable of offering that kind of support to her friend. She was sickened, and she was horrified. 

More than the calmness, the utter conviction, Nicole's quiet insistence that she was right scared Susan worse than anything else. 

The way she was standing there and talking as calmly about murder as if she were talking about going to the grocery store.

The way she was defending Michael's dangerous proclivity as a 'bad habit', something as inconsequential as biting one's nails, as harmless as snoring.

"Nicole," she said softly, rising from her seat. "You need help. Both of you do. I want to help you. I'm--I'm going to call the police."

Upon hearing Susan's words, every single thing in Nicole's line of vision first went temporarily black, and then red. 

A kind of clear coldness came over her, one that she had never experienced in her life. It fell over her eyes and made everything stand out before her in excruciating detail.

She possessed every color, every shape, every angle. She seemed to know every move Susan was going to make before she made it, giving her a definitive edge over the panicked woman.

Nicole grabbed the knife that she had been using to chop vegetables only a few minutes before, and lunged at her.

Susan ducked out of the way just before the knife would have connected with her head. It did, however, tear a deep line from her shoulder to forearm, making her shriek out in surprise, and pain.

She dropped to her knees under the kitchen table, picking up one of Michael's heavy boots that was sitting underneath a chair and lobbing it at Nicole's head.

It hit Nicole in the side of the neck, the pain so intense that it was stunning, temporarily immobilizing her.

Susan scrambled out from under the table and half ran, half crawled into the living room. Nicole heard the sound of the phone being lifted off the hook, and sprang into action.

Before Susan could even press the first number, Nicole barreled at her head-on, bellowing incoherently as she charged her once more with the knife.

This time it connected with the thick part of her thigh, making the sort of sound one might expect from sticking one's fist into barely-solidified jello.

The tip of the blade drove in deep enough to pierce her femoral artery , and Susan gasped, trying desperately to use her good hand as a tourniquet. Blood squelched through her fingers with surprising force, like a faucet turned on full-blast, running down her thigh in a steady stream and pooling into her shoes.

Susan was crying now, hysterical in her desire to get away from Nicole. Tears and snot mixed together on her face, her eyes wide with terror.

"Please, Nicole--won't tell--please--promise--" she was choking out, her hand clutching her squirting thigh, trying to scoot backwards.

Her words fell on deaf ears.

Snarling, Nicole brought the knife down as hard as she could in Susan's stomach, flinching as the first blow caused Susan to spray a stream of blood out of her mouth and into Nicole's face.

Unable to get away, Susan screamed loudly, the shrill shrieks echoing around and around the little room. 

Nicole had time to think to herself, how is her voice still going so strong with all the fluids she's lost? Are ALL people this annoyingly loud when you kill them?

Michael's job was a lot harder than she thought.

Nicole paused, using the knife to cut a chunk of Susan's shirt off. She balled up the blood soaked rag and shoved it in Susan's mouth, to try and quiet her some.

After that she continued her attack, bringing the blade down into Susan's stomach, her chest, her neck, and anywhere else that she could reach. 

Part of Nicole was cringing in terror from this scene, sickened and shocked at what was happening.

The other part was euphoric, enjoying the sounds the knife made going into Susan's soft skin, the gorgeous ruby liquid that colored her pale skin in artistic streaks and swirls. The way her makeshift gag muffed the sounds of her cries and agonized moans. 

Most of all, that deep down part of her was enjoying the power that came with this act; the complete and utter control. It was exhilarating, it was intoxicating.

It was addicting.

And then it was gone, the world settling back into its accustomed shades of whites and grays. Her mind turned back on, sending that deep-down part of her back to sleep. For now.

When she felt she couldn't lift her arm anymore, she stopped, panting heavily, looking at Susan's face.

She was dead, eyes open and staring blindly at the ceiling, cheeks still damp with tears.

She reached over and pulled the cloth from Susan's mouth, her other hand feeling her plump lips.

Hesitantly, she leaned over her and kissed those lips, marveling to herself at how warm they still felt, how lush and soft.

She dropped the knife and got unsteadily to her feet, staring down at her friends body with a heavy disbelief.

A slight sound from behind caused her to turn.

It was Michael, standing in the doorway to the kitchen and taking in the scene before him.

She looked at him, and he looked at her, the look of surprise etched on his face almost comical.

Clearing her throat, she spoke to him.

"Can you, um, help me with this? Please?" she asked, nodding down at Susan. "Can you put her where you put the others?"

He had a place far out in the woods where he buried the bodies he accumulated nightly. She wanted him to take Susan there now.

He understood. He nodded, coming into the room and picking Susan up, hoisting her limp weight over his shoulder.

When he left, she looked around the room, sighing at the mess she had to clean.

She started in the kitchen, wiping up the minor blood splatters on the floor and following her own trail into the living room, carrying various bottles of cleaners and disinfectants.

For once she was glad that she still hadn't gotten around to replacing the hardwood floors with carpet. That would have been impossible to clean up.

About 40 minutes passed before she was satisfied that everything looked much the way it had at the beginning of the evening.

She went into the spare bedroom, gathering up all of Susan's belongings and stuffing them  
Into a large black trash bag. She repeated her search through the bathroom, living room and kitchen, tossing in every single thing that had any connection to her at all.

She went into the backyard, setting the bag down in the grass as she lit the fire pit. She waited until the flames were really roaring before she tossed the bag on top, watching as the plastic, and the contents inside, slowly burned down into unrecognizable charred pieces of debris.

After the fire burned itself out, she swept the ashes into a neat pile and pushed them, with the rake, down the hole to the side of the pit.

When she turned to head into the house, she saw that Michael was back, standing in the door leading to the backyard, watching her.

She walked past him without a word and headed to the bathroom, stripping out of her clothes and stepping into the shower. She watched as traces of pink fell from her skin and hair, carried by the steaming water down the gurgling drain.

She stepped out and wrapped herself in a fluffy yellow towel, grabbing one of the small wastebasket liners from under the sink and stuffing her blood-dried clothes into it. She'd burn those tomorrow, as well.

She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed, drawing her knees up to her chin. 

She could hear Michael shuffling around in the hallway. She expected him to be heading out soon, like he always did around this time.

Instead, he came into the bedroom and sat down beside her, his eyes roaming over her face.

After being together so long she had more or less gotten used to interpreting what he wanted by reading his eyes, or judging his facial expression.

She could tell, now, that he wanted to ask her about what had happened.

"I don't want to talk about it, okay?", she said out loud, laying down and turning over on her side, facing away from him.

He said nothing, only reached out to rub her back. His hand moved in slow, warm circles in looping patterns from neck to hips. She sighed, enjoying the touch, letting it ease some of the tension in her muscles.

"I really had no choice," she murmured, closing her eyes. "She was going to tell someone. I couldn't let her do that to you. To US. I just couldn't."

She stayed still as he slowly withdrew his hand from her. She could feel him staring at her, boring holes through her back with his dark eyes.

"I never had much of a family, you know. Except for gramma, and she's gone. You're--my family, now. That means I've got to try and protect you the best way I can. Like you do for me."

It was so still, so silent that she wondered if maybe he had fallen asleep, or something.

His quiet voice startled her when he said, softly, "I'm sorry."

She turned around and looked up at him.

"You've got nothing to be sorry about," she informed him. "You don't have to change the way you are, or what you do, just because some people won't accept it."

"This is my fault," she went on, blinking at him. "I should have been more mindful of your 'work' before inviting someone here who wouldn't understand."

He said nothing, only looked at her with a slight frown on his face.

"I mean it," she repeated, guessing at what he was thinking. "It's not your fault this happened. And anyway it's over now. We can put it behind us."

He still said nothing, only watched her warily. 

Sighing, she reached up to touch his face. He closed his eyes, putting his hand over hers as she traced over his eyes, nose, and lips.

"I love you, you know," she said as she gently withdrew her hand.

Moving fast enough to scare her, he stripped off her towel with his strong hands, taking a second to look at her bare glistening skin before leaning over her, gripping her tiny wrists with his fingers and pinning her down, unable to move.

Holding her wrists above her head, he kissed down her jaw and neck, pausing to suck a bite into the muscle there.

She shuddered beneath him, her senses opening up like a flower to his touch.

"Wait, wait," she laughed, feebly attempting to push him away with her knees. "You seem hungry. Did you see I made fajitas?"

He paused, lifting his lips from her neck and turning his head towards the kitchen. He looked at her, then towards the kitchen, then back at her again.

She smiled, rolling out from under him and getting to her feet, wrapping the towel back around herself.

"Come on," she said, walking around to his side of the bed and holding out her hand. He took it as she said, with a grin,

"Dinner first. Dessert later."


	7. Chapter 7

As he prepared to move on the woman, a glint of pink on the floor by her bed caught his eye.

Curiously, he bent over and picked it up. It was a razor, one of those fancy duel-bladed plastic ones, meant for shaving.

The woman stared at him with fearful eyes, her terror making her incapable of speech or movement.

He reached her and grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her into place. Slowly, he sliced down her arm with the razor, pressing hard, the way you would slice with a potato peeler. A long strip of skin came off in the blade, jamming it. He delicately picked it out and dropped it to the floor before slicing again, and then again, bringing it repeatedly down her arms in wavy lines and curlicues.

It was a fascinating contrast, between the dark strips of skin laying in various shapes on the floor and the raw flesh underneath, seeping with blood.

And still she couldn't seem to scream. The most she could give him was a series of choked, muffled sobs, mixed in with little whimpers.

She managed to get one arm loose from his grip, and she swung at him, feebly, swaying lightly from shock and blood loss.

He caught her arm mid-swing and twisted it painfully behind her back. Using his other hand, he picked her up as easily as he would a rag doll and flung her head first at the window.

The glass shattered as her body made contact with it, raining down on her in jagged shards.

She attempted to put up her arms to shield her from the avalanche, but she was too weak. Large pieces of glass embedded themselves in her cheeks, her hands, mouth and neck. 

Michael walked slowly up to her, squatting down on his ankles, knees bent, in front of her limp body, tilting his head and inspecting her.

She was still breathing.

He reached into his pocket for his knife, intending to finish her off; and froze.

His knife wasn't there.

He patted the pocket where he normally kept it, and then his other ones, silently cursing to himself.

He must have left it at home. Again.

This was the second time in as many weeks that he had done that.

He looked at her, judging by her appearance that she wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

Sighing through his nose, he got up and backtracked down the stairs, going to the woman's kitchen.

He searched through all the drawers for a suitable knife; but the only ones he could find were harmless, dull butter knives.

He dug around in frustration, feeling annoyed, until he came across a large, long 3-pronged fork. As a weapon it didn't exactly have the threatening aesthetic as the knife; but the tines DID look exceptionally sharp.

Maybe I can do something with this, he thought to himself as he trekked back up the stairs and to the woman's bedroom.

When he entered the room, he was shocked to see the spot where she had been laying was empty, a subtle body-shaped outline of glass and blood the only indication that she had even been there.

He looked around the dim room, squinting his eyes, trying to see everywhere at once.

He held his breath and listened. Faintly, so low he could barely make it out, he heard shallow breathing coming from behind the dresser in the darkest corner of the room.

He stomped over to it and, bending to take it by the wooden legs, lifted it and flipped it backwards over his head. It crashed into the wall in a heap of wood and brass.

Screaming, the woman lunged at him with a piece of broken glass she had clutched in her hand, managing to jam it in his shoulder. 

Sighing irritably, he reached out and grabbed her by the throat, pinning her into the corner. He lifted up the fork and jammed it into her windpipe, watching as it pierced all the way through her skin and struck holes into the wall behind her.

He pulled it out, then shoved it back in again, and again and again, until her entire upper body was covered with sets of 3 bloody dots.

Almost like a vampire bit her, he thought to himself. With one extra fang, of course. 

But vampires don't exist.  
And monsters aren't real.

He let her fall in a heap to the floor, before reaching to his shoulder and yanking out the blade of glass she had embedded there.

He went into her bathroom, searching for a bandaid. All he could find was a box of thin adhesive strips, a bright cheerful pink.

Pink.

Great.

He shook his head as he opened up about 8 of them, carefully affixing them in a row over the deep gash on his shoulder. 

It wasn't really sufficient in stopping the bleeding, but it would have to do until he got back home.

He stepped out of the bathroom and looked around the woman's bedroom. He had made quite a mess in here, more so than he usually did.

But it wasn't really his fault; the lady had taken an exceptionally long time to die. That and his forgotten knife had forced him to get creative, and creativity can be time-consuming.

He stepped out the door and down the stairs, letting himself out through the front door. He was surprised to find the sun a little bit higher up the sky than it normally was when he started back.

He paused at the edge of the woman's backyard, noticing the large gaggle of roses growing in her garden. He opened the little yellow gate and stepped in, carefully picking out 20 of the largest blossoms and pulling them out of the ground, ignoring the minor sting of thorns cutting into his hands.

He then turned and left, quickening his pace, sticking to the thick trees and the back roads, until he reached his own place. 

He carried his clothes into the shed and laid them neatly at the edge of the work bench. He would deal with them later.

Picking up a pair of scissors from the bench, he trimmed the length of each rose stem until they were all the same length, carefully removing each and every thorn along the way.

He let himself into the back door, moving quietly so as not to wake a still sleeping Nicole. She always slept in late on the weekends.

He took a quick shower and properly bandaged his shoulder, wincing slightly at the soreness.

He headed back into the kitchen, preparing to face his most daunting task of the day: cooking.

He had watched Nicole closely enough to understand the basics, but was in no way confident in his abilities to make more than bacon, and toast.

Maybe you should just stick to that, then, he told himself, tilting his head.

He carefully put 4 pieces of bacon in the frying pan, keeping careful watch that they didn't burn or start on fire, turning the strips frequently. 

Once satisfied they were done, he laid them neatly on one of Nicole's cheerful flower-print plates.

He made her 2 pieces of butter and jam toast, cutting them diagonally and laying them beside the bacon.

Somethings missing, he thought, studying the plate. Eggs? Probably.

But he didn't think he could make eggs.

He went to the cabinet and pulled out a large box of cereal instead, a brightly colored box holding a bag of shapes and marshmallow pieces.

Personally, he thought cereal was disgusting. But Nicole really seemed to enjoy it.

He poured some into a bowl and added milk. He found a glass and poured in a large dose of orange juice.

He balanced the plates of food and the flowers on a small folding tray, carefully carrying it down the hallway towards the bedroom.

He set the tray down on the end table, before coming farther into the room and watching her sleep.

Her face lately has taken on a very focused look as she slept. She often looked as if she were worried, even in dreaming, or trying to solve a problem.

He thought maybe it had something to do with her killing her friend Susan a few weeks back.

She had calmly justified her reasons for doing so, trying to sound as if it hadn't bothered her; but Michael could tell that it had.

He wasn't very good with words, or articulating even to himself why he felt the way he did about the situation. If he could have said it, he'd have recognized that the killing of her friend was, in a way, symbolic.

She was a woman who, for whatever reason, shunned most physical and emotional connections with other people.

She had reached out to Michael in her loneliness, and he had reached back. 

Besides her relationship with Michael, and her strong love for her grandmother, the only other person she really had any attachment to was Susan.

But Susan represented that other life, the life of a normal person who formed normal commitments to other normal people.

With her grandmother already dead, the act of killing Susan represented Nicole shutting out that other life completely in order to fully embrace this one, with Michael.

And he was awed by this, and flattered that she would choose a life with him over all other possibilities. Killing Susan had been her final step this actuality. As brutal as that had been.

Brutal, and, at least in Michael's opinion, overwhelmingly sexy.

As embarrassing as that was to admit to himself.

Her normally pale skin had been flushed with color, her eyes bright, her breathing erratic, her small fingers wrapped tantalizingly around the handle of the kitchen knife.

Covered in blood, hunched over her friend's unmoving corpse, she had never looked quite so beautiful.

And, whether she was aware of it or not, her nipples had been noticeably hard, boring holes into the front of her thin shirt.

She had been too far gone with shock to notice at the time, but if she had looked down at him, she would have noticed the huge bulge straining the front of his pants.

He had purposefully spent longer than necessary taking Susan's body and dispose of it, waiting for his excitement to ease off, waiting to calm down.

Before he had met her, he had never had any thoughts of a sexual life. That sort of thing had just never interested him, and so he had lived without it, his entire life.

Even after he met Nicole, and had been with her a while, the thought had really never occurred to him.

It hadn't been an option in his mind until that night Nicole had walked in on him killing the hiker in the shed.

He had killed hundreds of women, but for as many of them as he had laid his murderous hands on, he didn't really know that much about them.

He had never imagined how good it would feel, touching one. Holding and kissing one. Never suspected how soft they could be, how smooth, how warm.

Not that he wanted to explore these feelings with anyone other than Nicole.

He smiled, now, as he crawled across the bed towards her, gently holding her face with the tips of his fingers and pressing soft warm kisses all over her face.

Her hands shot out with surprising speed and gripped the back of his head, her small fingers tangling into his hair and pulling his face down closer on hers, joining their lips together.

"Good morning," she mumbled in between kisses.

He started to move his hand down her thigh, then stopped, reminding himself of her surprise.

He pulled himself away, ignoring her protests as he walked to the table and picked up the tray, setting it down carefully on her lap.

"What's this?", she asked in surprise, eyes roaming over the tray. You--made me breakfast in bed?"

He nodded, eyes on her face.

"And roses! Oh my, they're gorgeous!," she exclaimed, lifting the bouquet up to her nose and inhaling deeply.

"This is so sweet of you! But what's the occasion?"

He grinned, leaning over to kiss her on the lips once more.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

-.-.-.-.-.-

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. -- what? -- of course -- no no, it would be no trouble at all--ok--ok we'll see you then. Okay. Bye."

Nicole hung up the phone, looking apprehensive. Michael looked at her curiously.

It was late afternoon, and Nicole had just been getting ready to go into the kitchen and start dinner when the phone had rung.

She turned to him now, explaining.

"That was Bonnie Mackey. The lady who's family lives about 2 miles down the road, you remember? Their daughter used to go to the grocery store for grandma?"

Michael nodded.

"Well, apparently her husband is out of town on a business trip, and her daughter had to be sent to the hospital from school. She says her appendix ruptured. Anyway she has to go to the hospital and wanted to know if we'd keep her other kid while she's gone, possibly overnight."

"I'm sorry, I should have asked you first. Are you okay with that?"

He nodded again, smiling to reassure her.

"Okay good. They'll be here in about half an hour."

She walked around the room, busily straightening up.

"I'm a mess, I'm going to take a quick shower before they get here."

He nodded, watching her walk away into bathroom.

About 10 minutes later, a car pulled up in the driveway, the door slamming and the sound of shoes crunching quickly up the drive.

Michael got up and pulled open the door before she had the chance to knock.

He opened the door on a tall, skinny blonde woman, holding a bag on one arm and carrying a tiny child in the other.

A girl, judging by the little yellow dress, and the yellow bows adoring a head of light brown curls.

"Hi, I'm Bonnie. You're Michael, right?"

He nodded, eyeing the small girl clinging to her mother's arms.

"Is Nicole around?", she asked, peering into the room behind him.

"She's in the shower," he said quietly.

"Well I'd wait for her to come out but I'm in an awfully big hurry. Do you mind taking her please?"

Michael nodded, awkwardly holding out his arms for the girl. 

She pried her daughters hands from her neck and placed her in Michael's arms. The child went quiet, staring up into his face.

"Here's her diaper bag," Bonnie was saying, reaching up and swinging its strap over his shoulder. There's a few changes of clothes, some food, a few books, everything you'll need."

She leaned over and kissed her daughter hurriedly, before rushing down the steps. "You be a good girl, now, Andie. I'll be back in the morning."

She turned back as she got to the car, waving at Michael. "Thank you both for doing this! I wrote down the name of the hospital, and the room phone number, if you need to contact me for anything; it's written on a piece of paper in the pocket of the bag. Thanks!"

With that she got into her car and sped down the driveway and out into the main road.

Michael looked at Andie.  
Andie looked back at Michael.

At that moment Nicole walked out of the bathroom, hair still damp, and smiled.

"Oh! She's here already? Bonnie must have been in a hurry, huh?"

Michael nodded, glancing down at Andie.

"Well, she certainly is a pretty girl," Nicole said in a soft voice, coming towards them. 

"Hi, Andie," she spoke gently to the little girl, holding out her arms. "I'm Nicole."

Andie hesitated, and then reached out for Nicole, letting her fold her into her arms.

"You smell really good, Andie. Like powder," Nicole continued, breathing in the sweet scent coming from her skin.

"I don't think she talks much yet," she said to Michael, going to sit on the couch. "Bonnie says she can walk around some, though; like a few steps at a time."

Michael came and sat beside them, watching. Andie was looking alertly around the new room, eyes taking in the unfamiliar setting.

Nicole set her down, and she grasped the coffee table with her little hands, balancing herself.

She toddled slowly a few steps around the table, stopped, then started again, eventually letting go of the table and moving in her own over the floor.

Michael watched, amused. 

Right before she got to the edge of the hallway her legs gave out and she fell in a thump on her little behind.

She immediately let loose with a shriek and a flood of tears, hitting at the floor with her clenched fists.

Nicole started to laugh, beginning to rise to go and pick her up.

Michael was there before her, moving quicker than quick, lifting her off the floor and up into his arms.

He gently swayed her back and forth, humming lowly in his throat.

Eventually she stopped crying, looking up at him, actually smiling a little.

Nicole smiled, too.

She hadn't known whether or not Michael would be good around children, having had no experience with them before. She was pleasantly surprised to see how calm he was with Andie, how soothing.

"Do--you think you'll be okay with her, in here, while I go and start dinner?"

He glanced up at her and nodded.

"Okay, thank you. Just yell if you need me."

She went into the kitchen, and Michael went with her over to the sofa, turning on the tv. He searched through the programs, trying to find one suitable for children.

He finally landed on a rerun of Sesame Street. At least, he thought it was Sesame Street. There was a big yellow bird and some kind of vampire counting a handful of toy blocks.

Thinking of vampires made him think of the woman he had killed a few days ago, with the fork. Picturing the holes all over her body made him snicker to himself.

The show was utterly boring, although Andie seemed to enjoy it, watching the puppets move along the screen with wide eyes.

She was sitting up in Michael's lap, leaning slightly against him, looking absolutely comfortable.

They watched through 3 episodes, Nicole leaving the kitchen periodically and leaning over the couch to watch with them, until he became familiar with the majority of the characters names. 

The show itself was dull, so he amused himself by imaging various way to kill all the characters in the screen.

Ernie would be the easiest to take out, he thought to himself. He has very little common sense and almost no awareness of his surroundings. A slit to the throat would be quick and easy for him.

Big bird would be a little harder, though. The feathers look thick, it would take a lot to get a knife deep enough in there to make a difference. Probably be best to go with an Ax. Chop off the weird feet first, then the head.

Can he fly? I don't think so, he looks too fat to fly. I wonder if he'd taste good?

Yeah, an ax would make him easy to take out. Unless that weird looking elephant interfered. Who IS that, anyway? His bodyguard? He seems a little depressed; he'd probably enjoy being killed.

I'd probably get his trunk off with a saw and stuff it down his mouth. It looks long enough to choke him, I think. I doubt he'd even try to run, he moves so slowly now.

He was so engrossed in his planning that he hadn't heard Nicole walk up behind him, until she was tapping his shoulder.

"Dinner is ready," she said, smiling at him. "Sorry to interrupt your show; you looked really into it."

He nodded as he picked up Andie and followed Nicole into the kitchen.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Nicole was digging through Andie's diaper bag, looking to see if her mother had packed her an extra blanket. 

She had set up a small bed for her on a fluffy air mattress in the guest room. She had covered it with every extra blanket in the house, making a warm cozy nest for the tired child. She had lined the sides with pillows, in case she rolled over in her sleep, and a handful of the child's toys, to provide familiarity and comfort.

There weren't any more extra blankets in the bag.

It's ok, she told herself, you've probably got more than enough on her, anyway.

She had left Andie with Michael, while she looked. She walked back down the hall towards the guest room, when a sudden sound caused her to pause in her tracks, straining her ears to listen.

She crept up to the mostly-closed guest room door, and stood quietly just outside it, completely mesmerized.

Michael was--reading. Out loud. To Andie. 

She had never heard him speak so long before, nor in complete, flowing sentences, like that.

Listening to him read to Andie was like hearing the voice of a total stranger. 

His voice was calm and quiet, with a soothing, even pitch to it. It travelled in a rich melody over the words in the little children's book, giving them new life, new meaning.

She held her breath as she stood out there and listened, so as not to alert him to her presence. She didn't think he would continue reading if he knew she was out there, and she didn't want him to stop. She could listen to him talk forever.

Soon, too soon, the story ended, and she could hear the sound of him closing the book and laying it down the table.

She hastily turned and tip-toed as quietly as she could back towards the living room, settling herself on the couch with a magazine, trying to look as though she'd been there for a while.

She glanced up casually after he came into the room, coming to sit beside her on the couch.

"Is she asleep?", she asked him casually, turning the page.

He nodded.

"You headed out for work soon?"

He paused, and then shook his head.

"Really? You're not going out tonight?"

He shook his head again.

"Why not?"

He didn't reply. Instead he yawned loudly, stretching both arms out in front of him. When he was done stretching, he sat back and leaned into Nicole, using her shoulder as a pillow.

She kept on reading a few more pages of her magazine, enjoying the sensation of his weight pressed into her.

Without warning, he leaned up further and buried his face against her neck, underneath her hair. She could feel the ghost of his lips against her skin, tasting her, breathing her in, raising goosebumps all along her arms.

He mumbled something beneath her ear and she pulled away slightly, in shock, not sure that she had actually heard what she thought she heard.

"What was that?", she asked him in a low whisper.

Raising his head, and speaking clearer, he looked directly into her eyes and repeated what he had said the first time.

"I love you."

She smiled, feeling overwhelmed. 

She had said that to him countless times, before, but he had never once said those same words back to her. To hear him say them now was so unexpected that she wasn't sure how to respond.

Before her mind would answer for her, her body took over, flinging itself into his lap, hands aggressively pulling at his clothes.

He reacted in kind, his hands eager and lips roaming, until eventually they fell asleep, exhausted, on the couch; where they stayed the rest of the night.

-.-.-.-.-

Bonnie came back early the next morning, looking tired and frazzled. She collected her still-sleeping baby and placed her in a little portable car seat, strapping her in.

"Was she any trouble?" she asked in a whisper, glancing up at the two of them.

"Oh, no," Nicole said quietly, smiling down at her. "She's a really sweet little girl. We enjoyed having her."

"Well, I can't tell you again how much I appreciate your both doing this. It's good to know you can still depend on neighbors in this world; even if they are miles apart from each other."

They watched as she pulled out of the driveway and down the road.

Without realizing it, both of them let out a sigh as they closed the door and headed back into the house.

It had been nice, having a kid in the house. Even if it had been for so brief a time.

Later that afternoon, they sat in the living room together, turning on the tv.

They watched the news for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.

Out of a silence, Michael turned and looked at her. He cleared his throat and asked her, softly,

"Do you want kids?"

She looked at him sideways, from the corner of her eye.

He was staring at her with a thoughtful expression on his face, head tilted, eyes focused.

"I don't know," she said, shifting in her seat. "My minds never really been all that clear on the subject."

"On one hand, kids and babies are kind of, I don't know, sweet. The way they smell, and hold your hand, and cling to you. That's very sweet."

"But on the other hand they're such a huge responsibility. If you're the parent, then anything that goes wrong with them, it's your fault. And so many things can go wrong, you know?"

She glanced over at him, and he nodded.

"Do you think I sound immature, or childish, or whatever the word is, saying these things?"

He shook his head, smiling a little.

"Of course, I'm not saying that my mind won't maybe change someday. But right now, I like it being just me and you. Besides, if I feel the need to take care of something small anytime soon, it'd probably be cheaper just to get a pet, right?"

He nodded again, getting up to kiss her forehead before heading into the bedroom, preparing to change his clothes and leave for 'work'.

As she watched him lope away, a sudden thought occurred to her. 

She hadn't asked HIM whether or not HE wanted kids someday.

She pushed the thought out of her head as she headed into the bathroom, to shower before going to sleep.

She lay awake in bed a long time, lonely, letting her thoughts crash relentlessly around her brain until at last she drifted off into dreams.

She awoke in the morning to a wet tongue licking her nose and lips. Thinking it was Michael trying to be funny, she put her hand out, eyes still closed, intending to push him away. Instead of his cold skin, her hand touched soft, warm fur.

She opened her eyes slowly.

Sitting on her chest was a small brown and white puppy, wiggling its tail and eagerly lapping at her face.

She sat up carefully, clutching the dog gently to her, stroking its velvety little back.

Michael was sitting on the side of the bed, watching the two of them, chuckling softly to himself.

"He's so cute!" she exclaimed softly, gently leaning over with the dog in the crook of her arm and pulling Michael's face down towards her with the other, kissing him. "Does he have a name?"

Michael raised his eyebrows, reaching out and taking the small puppy gently in his large hands, turning it this way and that.

He handed it back to her, watching it playfully bat at the bedspread, before he said, in his quiet voice, "Spot". Most likely in reference to the large circles of white and dark brown patterned against its light brown fur.

"That's a very fitting name, considering his coloring," she said.

He shook his head, a grin on his face as he pointed to a tiny wet spot that had suddenly appeared on the blanket, below Nicole's chest.

She saw what he was pointing at and laughed, as the dog leapt up on her, showering her face with excited kisses.

She began to get up, to find a washcloth to clean up the little accident.

"Spot. Okay. I like that."

"Spot."


	8. Chapter 8

Chopping down wood is significantly easier than chopping down people.

Wood may be thicker, but it's basically immobile. It will stand perfectly still while you repeatedly swing your axe into it, making no vocal noises, leaking no fluids.

When you're done, it will politely fall to one side, and that will be the end of it.

Clean, simple, easy.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of humans.

They can be most impolite when it comes to their own demise.

They'll run. They'll scream. They'll cry and beg and slobber and grovel. They rudely prolong the inevitable, making their benefactor's already-difficult job just that much harder.

And then, of course, they'll do the worst thing of all:

They'll fight back.

They'll kick and punch and bite and claw. They'll throw things. In some cases they'll even be so uncouth as to use vulgar language with you, or call you the most awful names imaginable.

With all the backlash, and the difficulties involved with the job, it almost made the act of killing just not worth it at all.

Almost.

He had come across two men camping in the woods, sitting in front of a fire on two stumps and using an overturned wooden crate as a makeshift table between them, as they played cards.

Moving swiftly, Michael quietly walked up to their campsite in the darkness, unseen and unheard to either of the two men.

He spotted an axe next to a pile of chopped up kindling, and picked it up in his hand, admiring the heft, the solidity of it. He ran his fingers experimentally over the blade, smiling at how wonderfully sharp it was.

He fully emerged from the darkness just as the smaller man was laying a hand of cards down on the table. He lifted the axe above his head and neatly cut his hand off at the wrist.

The smaller man looked down at his hand and let out a piercing scream. His severed hand was still holding tight to the handful of cards that it had been clutching.

Both men jumped up and ran towards the tent, yelling. 

Michael swung out with the blade of the axe and caught the smaller man in the front of his head, cleaving a deep gash in his face, splitting it in two pieces from his nose to his chin.

The man screamed again, the two separate pieces of his lips grotesquely out of sync with each other. He dropped to his knees, trying to hold his spurting face with his good hand.

His fall managed to trip the other man as well, who fell and smashed his head with brutal force into a metal water pail, rendering him unconscious.

Michael brought his axe down one last time in the smaller man, hitting him directly in the chest, stopping his heart.

He tilted his head and looked at the cut up man, watching him closely to be positive that he was no longer breathing. Satisfied, he turned his attention towards the deceased's companion.

The larger man was beginning to regain consciousness, groaning quietly to himself.

Michael brought the axe down into the gut of the larger man. It sunk into his skin with the ease of a knife going through butter, the head almost completely disappearing in the man's ample stomach.

Pulling the axe out was a bit more difficult than it had been to get it to go in. Michael put his boot on the man's chest for leverage as he drew it slowly back out, rocking it back and forth the way a lumberman will remove his axe from the clinging grip of a soft tree.

He brought the blade down again in a hard stroke, this time cleanly decapitating the man at the neck. The head rolled sluggishly towards the trees, landing at the base of a large pine with a sticky thud.  
Blood sprayed out of the neck in a high-tension jet, wetting the front of Michael's shirt and streaking the side of his mask.

He swung the axe a final time, leaving it sticking out of the man's thigh, as he walked away from the campsite.

On his way out, he stopped and examined the severed head still sitting against the trees. It would be interesting, he thought, if he could find someone who specialized in shrinking heads, like voodoo practitioners supposedly did. He could start a collection of heads, and probably other body parts, out in the shed at home.

But no. No, no; Nicole wouldn't like that all.

And so he left the head where it lay and continued on his way through the woods, whistling softly to himself.

The night was still young, and unlimited possibilities awaited him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I just never got this movie, ever. It makes no sense."

He said nothing, just tightened his arms around her.

They were relaxing in their bedroom, having spent the afternoon watching a handful of old movies. Nicole had been feeling under the weather all week, and today she had finally given up "toughing it out" and had called into work.

She didn't feel up to sitting in the living room, so Michael had moved the tv into the bedroom for her. Spot laid at their feet, chewing contentedly on a large dried pig's ear.

She continued:

"She doesn't like her parents, and she really doesn't like her baby brother. Then she gets angry because her wish came true and the Goblin King took the kid away? No sense."

"And then, like, it becomes obvious that the King has a crush on her, and he even offers her a chance to stay with him, be his queen. How do you turn something like that down? And for what? To go back home with the brother she hates to the parents she hates, in a world she doesn't really fit into."

She twisted around and looked at his face. His eyes remained expressionless, although a hint of a smile tugged at his lips.

She sighed before leaning back against him, burrowing into his warmth.

"I know, I know; I think too much."

She hunched forward as a sudden round of painful coughing wracked her body. She out her hand against her chest, to brace herself. Michael was patting her firmly on the back, trying to help.

When it was over she remained bunched up, eyes closed, afraid to speak in case that made her start coughing again.

When she was sure that it was over, she drew a shuddery breath and leaned back into him again.

"I'm okay," she said softly, answering the unspoken question she could feel him staring into her back.

Quietly, he said "You don't sound okay."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She hated when others made a fuss over her when she was sick. She hated BEING sick. She took it as an act of personal betrayal, that her immune system wasn't able to throw off a simple code. It was weakness, a trait that she absolutely despised when it came to herself.

She calmed herself before replying, "Really, I'm fine. I just need to keep taking the medicine and rest a few days, and I'll be back to normal."

He said nothing, but she thought she could almost feel him shaking his head behind her.

"So you'll never guess who I got a letter from today," she said, feeling a subject change was needed.

He looked at her curiously. She twisted around so that she was fully facing him.

"My father. He wrote to the old house in Haddonfield and the post office forwarded it here. I'm surprised he even knew the old address in the first place."

"I haven't spoken to him in, God, almost 10 years, now. I haven't seen him for nearly 15."

He said nothing, only continued to look at her curiously.

She paused, trying to collect her thoughts on the matter.

"It's kind of a long story."

He said nothing, only looked at her expectantly.

She sighed and snuggled back into his arms. She was quiet a long time before speaking, in her soft voice.

"I guess the first thing I should tell you is that this isn't my biological father. That man died in some kind of trucking accident before I was even born, so I never knew him. The man I'm talking about met my mother when I was two and married her when I was 3, so he's the for-all-intents-and-purposes father figure in my life."

"I hated him. And I knew that I hated him from 2 years old. He treated my mother and me so horribly. He was hardly ever around, and when he was home, he was usually blasted out of his mind with prescription pills and alcohol."

"Sometimes, I don't know who I'm more angry at. Him, for coming into our lives in the first place; or my mother, for LETTING him in."

"Coming here, to this house, was my only escape from all that. Grandpa died when I was 8 or so, and to be honest I don't remember all that much about him. Grandma told me that I was his favorite person ever, though," she said with a small smile.

She shifted on the bed, laying down so that her head was in Michael's lap. He stroked her hair gently as she continued.

"I wrote him back to the address he gave. I told him I have no desire to see or speak to him."

Her voice hardened, and she scoffed angrily. 

"He tried to say that he's a changed man, and he wants to make things right with me. But it's too late for that. Way too late. It was too late when I was 10 and messed up my friend Sarah's family by sleeping with her mom. It was too late when he went drinking with his friends the night before and slept at home all day, on my high school graduation. Way too late."

Michael said nothing, just kept stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of his fingers pulling lightly through her locks, tenderly massaging her tired scalp.

"You know," she said quietly, eyes still closed, "I've always heard it said that girls who have bad or no relationships with their dads turn out funny. That they always seek out the wrong kind of man to be with."

"But I don't think that applies to me. Do you?" She sat up, looking at him. "I mean, I ended up with the best man possible, didn't I?"

He chuckled lowly to himself, and after a moment she joined him, relishing how good it felt to laugh, despite the pain it caused in her chest and throat.

"It's like we're two sides of the same weird coin. But that's not such a bad thing, is it?"

"No."

-.--.-.-.-.-

About a week later, Nicole had managed to shrug off her cold, and was back to normal, returning to work and the like.

Now that the weather was nicer, she had started to take long walks in her free time. Sometimes Michael went with her, but most times she went by herself, walking Spot on his leash. 

She and Spot had left about half an hour ago, planning on going the two miles to visit with Bonnie and Andie.

"We'll be back soon," she had said, dropping a kiss on Michael's cheek before heading out the door. Michael watched them go until they were out of sight, smiling at how eagerly Spot pranced on his leash.

He went into the living room, intending to watch the news, when the doorbell rang. He got up to answer it.

A tall, thin man stood on the doorstep. His clothes were loose and tattered on his gangly body. It was obvious that he hadn't showered or shaved in quite a long time. The unmissable reek of stale cigarettes, and alcohol, hung around him in a cloud.

There was no car or anything like that in the driveway, and no sign of a car in the road. He must have hitchhiked out here.

He sneered at Michael, pushing past him and stumbling into the room. He swayed slightly, looking around before he bellowed,

"Where is she? Where's my daughter?!"

He began to call out her name, walking through the house, opening doors and peering in. 

Michael stood in the doorway and watched him silently.

"Where is she?", the man demanded, staggering up to Michael and sticking a finger into his chest. "I know she's here somewhere!"

He took a scuffed-looking silver flask out of his shirt pocket, taking a long swallow before stuffing it back in.

"Who are you?", he asked Michael, eyes barely able to focus on him. "You her husband? Figures she'd go and marry a big ugly dummy. Just as stupid as her mother."

"Little bitch thinks she's too good to see her old man," he mumbled, waving his arms around. "Too good! Always was stuck up, her and her old bitch of a grandma."

Michael tilted his head, looking at him, still saying nothing.

"Well, where IS she?" he demanded again. I KNOW she's here. I'm gonna teach her a lesson, thinking she's better than me."

A slow smile spread across Michael's face. Quietly, he said,

"She's in the shed."

"The shed? Good! Let's go! Show me where it is, huh?"

Michael put his hand on the man's shoulder, guiding him towards the door. 

He'd show him exactly where the shed was.

"Follow me.",he said quietly, closing the door behind them.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"We're home, Michael," she called, stepping into the kitchen. The dog trotted into the room, wagging his tail and going to lick Michael's hand before disappearing into the living room. 

He was sitting at the table, a large plate of cookies sitting in front of him with a glass of milk.

He got up and pulled a glass out of the cabinet, filling it with milk and setting it in front the chair next to him. She grinned, kissing him before sitting down and taking a cookie off the plate.

As she ate, she shifted through the mail that was sitting in a neat pile on the table, looking mildly surprised.

"That's funny; I've been expecting my dad to reply back all week, begging for me to change my mind and see him. But no letter. I guess he got the message the first time, huh?"

Michael looked up at her, smiling softly. Nodding his head, he agreed, quietly:

"I guess he did."


	9. Chapter 9

The man entered the house behind Michael, sunken eyes taking in everything in a slow methodical sweep.

His gaze fell on Nicole, laid there like a heavy weight. She felt paralyzed, like she couldn't move one step until he shifted his eyes away from her.

And then Michael was coming over to her, putting his arms around her waist and squeezing tightly. 

The man watched him do this with an expression that she could only describe as shock; as if the very idea of Michael getting physically close to her was amazing, in some way.

The man was tall, about a head taller than Michael, and husky. He wore a ripped tan jacket over a dark blue shirt, and black pants. Like Michael, he wore heavy combat boots.

Also like Michael, his face was hidden behind a mask, a tattered off-white hockey mask that sat firmly over his head.

Most intimidating of all, perhaps, was what was in his hand. He carried a large machete, sharp-bladed and impossibly heavy-looking. The edge was dark brown with crusted-over blood.

She tried not to be nervous around this stranger, but she was. Even Michael's calm demeanor did little to ease her discomfort.

Very quietly, Michael spoke into the stillness of the room, stating simply,

"This is Jason."

When Michael had said several days ago that his friend was passing through their neck of the woods, and wondered if it would be alright if he stayed with them a couple of nights, Nicole had agreed.

She had been surprised, mostly; she didn't think that someone like Michael HAD friends.

She could tell, immediately, that Jason had the same "profession" that Michael did. But something about him was just a little more dangerous, set her triggers on edge just slightly more than Michael did.

Was that because she had grown used to Michael? Or was the visitor truly someone to be feared?

Spot had much the same reaction she did, apparently. He took one look at the man and took off into their bedroom, making a hiding spot for himself in the closet.

Putting on a brave face, she shrugged off Michael's arms and approached the man slowly, making no sudden movements or doing anything that might possibly set him off.

"Hi, Jason. I'm Nicole, Michael's girlfriend. It's nice to meet you," she said, timidly extending her hand out towards him.

He looked at her hand, tilting his head slightly. Then he raised the hand with the machete in it, and Nicole had one heart stopping moment where she thought he was going to bring it down on her skull.

Then he was laying the weapon gently against the wall and taking her hand, pumping it up and down slowly, as if unused to such a gesture.

When he pulled his hand away, Nicole couldn't help but shudder a little. He was wearing gloves, but even with the thick leather covering, his hands were icy cold, as if he had come straight from the grave.

In fact, that was kind of where it DID look like he came from.

She pulled herself together and said, in as friendly a voice as she could manage, 

"Dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes. Make yourself comfortable, please."

She turned and walked into the kitchen, glad of the chance to get away from Michael's friend. 

This is weird, she thought to herself, as she took the roast out of the oven. I don't think he talks much, either. And why was he staring at me like that, when Michael hugged me? Like he was surprised?

Well, I guess if my friend was a murderer and had a normal girlfriend, I'd be curious, too.

She brought out the food to the table, trying to ignore Jason's stares as she set down each dish, the way his eyes followed her around the room.

"Help yourselves, guys," she said, settling back in her chair, arms folded, watching them each load up their plates.

Unlike Michael, Jason did not take his mask fully off to eat. He only raised it just so it was above his mouth.

The skin underneath the mask was pale, too pale, almost with a bluish pallor to it. A few of his front teeth looked wickedly sharp, and pointed. Nicole found herself wondering, absurdly, if he was a vampire of some sort, or maybe a zombie.

Don't be ridiculous!, she scolded herself in her mind. You know zombies aren't real! And besides, even if they were, I'm pretty sure they don't eat roast beef and potatoes!

To fill the silence, she talked a little bit about her day, telling them a few amusing anecdotes from around the office. 

She knew Michael was listening, by the expression on his face. She wasn't so sure about Jason, partly because his mask hid his eyes but also because he didn't look at her.

As she watched him eat, she found herself feeling a bit sorry for him, this odd scary silent man. The ravenous way he ate made her think that he hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. And certainly no one to care for him, the way she did for Michael.

After both had cleaned their plates 3 times, Nicole got up, saying "I made Chocolate caramel cake for dessert. Do you boys want a piece?"

Michael nodded, a smile on his face.

But Jason sat there, his exposed mouth twisting into a confused look, tilting his head.

She guessed what he was thinking and told him "You'll like chocolate; it's really very good. Trust me."

She went into the kitchen and grabbed the plate with the cake on it, and two plates, and brought them to the table. 

She cut a slice for each of them and handed it to them with a fork.

Michael dug into his piece but Jason sat looking at his, turning it this way and that with his fork.

"Try it," she said, licking a bit of chocolate from her thumbnail. "You'll like it."

He took a tentative bite with the fork, and something close to a smile spread over the bits of his mouth that she could see. 

He quickly devoured his piece, and then another, much to Nicole's amusement.

"I'm glad you like it," she said with a grin, as she stood up to collect the dishes. 

Michael began to stand up to help her, when Jason put out his arm and waved him back down.

Watching her, he stood up and began collecting plates from his side of the table, piling them in his thick arms.

Michael smiled, watching his friend.

Jason followed Nicole into the kitchen and handed her the plates, one by one, as she put them to soak in the sink.

"Thank you," she said softly, tentatively placing her small hand on his broad shoulder. "It's really nice of you to help out like this."

He nodded, then turned and went back to join Michael in the other room.

She washed the dishes, listening as the two scuffled into the living room and the news went on.

Sometimes she could hear Michael talking, in his deep quiet voice; but as hard as she listened she couldn't hear whether Jason answered back. She didn't think so; he seemed almost completely mute.

But then again, she had thought the same thing of Michael, when she first met him, and that had turned out to be false.

The more time he had spent with Nicole, the more he opened up, emotionally as well as vocally. Maybe if Jason had someone to be around, he'd open up too.

Maybe.

She dried her hands and walked back into the living room, sitting down next to Michael and leaning into his shoulder.

"Are you . . . BOTH going out to work, later?", she murmured against him.

Michael looked down at her and nodded.

She looked across the room where Jason sat and noticed that he was staring at her attentively, as if he had a question he wanted to ask.

Before she could say anything, Michael was saying, quietly,

"She knows."

Oh, so that must have been it. He must have wondered whether she was aware of what they were going out and doing.

"I know," she said lightly, trying to ease some of the awkwardness of the situation by making a joke of it. "My only rule is that you do it outside. Blood is a real pain to clean from the floor."

Both of them looked at her, and then, amazingly, Jason startled to chuckle, the sound low and somewhat distorted from his mask; but a chuckle all the same.

Michael joined in, and then Nicole joined herself, unable to help laughing over the absurdity, the odd reality, of the situation.

"No blood in the house," said Michael quietly.

Across the room, Jason nodded his head in agreement, still chuckling lightly to himself.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Michael dumped the girl on top of the little heap of bodies in the corner, grunting as he did so. This one had quite a few extra pounds on her, and lifting her wasn't as easy as it was the others.

He could hear the screaming from the kitchen, and realized that Jason was still at it. He had to hurry, if he was going to beat his count before sunrise.

He was glad to have his old friend visiting him, glad to see that he was still alive (mostly) and as adventurous as ever.

He had been uncharacteristically nervous, inviting him to stay in the house with him and Nicole. He wasn't at all sure how he would react to her.

He could see it, a little, in his eyes when he went over to her and put his arms around her waist. He had been shocked, that he could get that close to a woman, without slicing into her.

He knew that Jason did not see people in the sane way he did, some useful, some not, some friend and some foe. To him, everybody was just a waiting victim, a nameless face that would soon go into a body bag.

Michael had explained to him, patiently, that Nicole was someone that he adored and that he considered his 'mate'; therefore, killing her was off-limits.

Jason had nodded, but didn't look as if he really understood what he meant. "Love" had no meaning for him; nor did the concept of living with someone.

But he had agreed that he wouldn't kill her, as odd as a condition as that was for him.

And he thought that maybe he saw a little bit into WHY Michael cared so much about her; her sweet nature and her unquestioning acceptance were hard to ignore, even for someone as hardened as Jason was.

They had walked out quite a few miles, after dinner, lucking into a house filled with teenagers having some kind of party sleepover.

They made a bet with each other, to see who could kill the most people before the sun came up.

So far, Jason was winning.

He was totally in his element as he hacked and slashed the evening away, finding the majority of his kills hidden away in bedrooms, in the throes of passion. Two for one special, that was.

Michael never understood why Jason delighted so in killing people who were fornicating. But then again, Michael had been the same way himself, before Nicole.

Maybe that was all Jason needed; to enjoy the carnal company of a woman.

A loud crash ensued from the kitchen as Jason brought down a heavy cast iron skillet repeatedly into the skull of a naked blonde girl.

Then again . . . maybe not.

Michael turned around, encountering a boy huddled into the corner, trying to remain absolutely still in the hopes that Michael wouldn't see he was still alive.

He stalked towards the boy and lifted him up by his neck, bringing him so that his head almost touched the low ceiling. He brought out his knife, preparing to deliver the fatal blow to his temple, when out of no where a machete swung into his field of vision, neatly decapitating the boy right above where Michael's hand was gripped.

Blood and gristle spurted from the new wound, splashing against Michael's mask. He looked over at Jason in irritation as the latter chuckled to himself, before going off into the next room.

Michael dropped the body and followed him, smirking to himself. 

Two could play that game.

Jason had a girl by the arms and was viciously swinging her around the room, ignoring her screams as he smashed her little body into all the hard edges and walls. 

Michael leapt up mid-swung and stabbed his knife into the girl's back. She landed on the blade hard enough so that she vomited out an impressive tidal wave of dark red blood, then collapsed in a heap where Jason dropped her to the floor.

The two friends looked at each other and grinned.

Tonight was going to be fun.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The sun was already a good deal up in the sky before they made their way home.

They stopped off in a stream first and rinsed off the majority of the blood and gore from themselves, having gotten a bit more messy than usual.

They dried before they reached the house, Michael leading Jason to the shed and showing him where to stash his machete next to his knife, along with his blood-stained overcoat.

"No blood in the house," Michael said with a grin, to which Jason nodded, and smiled underneath his mask.

Nicole was awake and making breakfast when they came quietly in the back door. On the table was a large spread of homemade waffles, eggs, bacon, toast, and fluffy blueberry muffins.

Michael walked up to her, where she was facing the sink, and grabbed her from behind, squeezing as he kissed the back of her neck.

"Oh!", she exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't even hear you come in!"

He spun her around and lifted her to the counter, kissing her despite her embarrassed protests.

"Breakfast is ready," she said as he let her down, slightly red-faced.

"I'm sorry i can't stay and eat with you boys, but I've got to run, I'll be late for work. Did you have fun last night?"

They both nodded.

"That's good. Um, Michael, please make sure you let Spot out today before you take a nap or anything; I don't want him peeing on the floor again."

He nodded at her.

"Okay, I've gotta go. I love you!", she said, giving him a smacking kiss on the lips. "See you later, Jason," she waved at his friend, as she made her way out the door.

They ate until they were ready to burst, and then they gathered up the dishes and put them into the soapy sink water. Michael did them carefully as Jason watched, intrigued at his friend's newly discovered domestic capabilities.

They were about to retire to their rooms to rest a while, when the doorbell rang.

Michael went to answer it, opening the door on a small man with with a clipboard in hand.

"Good morning, Sir, I am the state's representative census taker. Might I have a few moments of your time?"

Jason stood behind him in the shadows, twitching with excitement.

Without saying anything, Michael turned slightly towards his friend and gave him a look that he hoped conveyed what he was thinking.

No blood . . . in the HOUSE.

Without a sound, the shadow moved through the darkness of the rooms and out the back door, waiting.

To the man, Michael said "The house is a bit messy. Follow me out back?"

The man nodded and followed Michael through the now-empty room to the backyard, clipboard still clutched in his hands.


	10. Chapter 10

"And you come to me on a summer breeze,  
Keep me warm in your love then you softly leave  
And it's me you need to show  
How deep is your love?"

Michael sat in the living room, holding his head as the dreaded song came on again.

Nicole had the radio going in the bedroom, playing a CD of mixed songs over and over again on a continuous loop.

He wasn't sure what was wrong with her.

For the past few weeks she had been on edge like he had never seen before. 

She was crying hysterically one moment and laughing like a lune the next. 

She had called into work 3 days in a row, using up her vacation days. Today made day 4.

One night she had clung to his arm and begged him not to leave her to go to work. 

The next night she locked herself in the bathroom and screamed at him to "go, already! Just GO!" when he asked if she wanted him to stay again.

So Michael trekked out into the darkness, seeking something to help him ease his mind over his confusing woman.

About 12 miles to the east he came upon a man and a woman, tangled into each other on the ground.

He assumed that they were having sex, and crept up quietly, to surprise them.

Yet as he got closer, he became aware that the sounds they were making were not the usual sounds of love.

The woman was crying, sobbing deeply and muttering out what sounded like"No" and "stop".

The man was paying her no heed, putting his hands all over her cringing body, occasionally slapping her across he face when he grew tired of her incessant pleading.

The woman lay underneath him, turning her head away in sick disgust over what was happening. The man outweighed her by quite a bit and she no longer had the strength to fight him off.

She turned her head, to try and deny what was taking place. As she looked off into the trees, she saw Michael, quietly standing there, watching.

The glow of the campfire was thrown over Michael's face, making him look like some kind of glowing dark angel that had emerged from the forest.

She looked right at him, and instead of screaming in fear, as most did when they saw him, she looked hopeful.

Without engaging her vocal cord, she mouthed out a plea to him, silently, her lips forming around the words without speaking them.

Help me. Please. 

Michael paused, then nodded, putting a finger slowly to his lips to convey that she should remain silent.

He crept up on them from the opposite direction, and before the man knew what was happening, he was being lifted off the girl and flung into a nearby tree hard enough to crack his spine.

He tried to stand, panicked, and found that he couldn't. He began to crawl instead, moaning out in sheer agony.

Michael walked up to him and kicked him, hard, in the ribs, causing the man to flip over on to his back, screeching in pain.

Michael lifted him by the collar and carried him over to the fire, holding him in front of it. 

The girl was watching, half-naked and terrified, unable to look away.

Michael turned the man so that he was facing the girl, holding his head up by the scruff of his hair. 

"Apologize."

The man let loose a stream of choked, frantic apologies to the girl, blood and tears mingling on his face.

When Michael had heard enough, he turned and plunged the man head-first into the roaring fire, holding his body firmly as the flames licked and wrapped around his face, melting the skin and burning off all of his hair. 

Once the man lost consciousness, Michael pulled his head out of the fire and dropped him in a heap on the ground. He then pulled out his knife and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest, until his whole front was a gushing red waterfall.

Satisfied, he turned back towards the girl. She had fainted, passing out in a swoon on the ground, from the trauma of what she had just seen.

Michael tilted his head, looking at her.

Then he slowly began to dress her, being careful not to touch more of her than absolutely necessary. Once she was dressed, he bent over and lifted her into his arms, carting her through the woods.

He walked until he found a main road, with a small 24 hour convenience store standing against the trees. 

He crept up, unseen, and placed the girl outside the entrance to the store, where someone would be sure to find her and help her.

After he left, he found, oddly, that he didn't feel up to any more "work" for the night. He felt tired, which was unusual for him.

And, try as he might, he could not take his mind off of Nicole.

He was worried, but he wasn't sure what to do, exactly.

Was she in some way tired of him?

Did her mind finally catch up to all the stuff she had been repressing since the day she had met him? 

Had she come to the conclusion that being with him wasn't worth it anymore, that her conscious could no longer take all the deaths, the murders, the disappearances she knew were related directly to him?

He couldn't imagine going forward, without her.

He could find another place to live, easily. 

He has been more or less living as a scavenger for more years than he could count, before he met Nicole.

But he didn't think he could go back to being alone.

He sat in the living room, now, letting these thoughts run through his head and trying to figure out a course of action to take.

There was a lull in the music, everything going silent as the CD came to an end. He waited a few minutes to see if she'd start it up again.

She didn't.

He walked quietly to the door, lifting his hand to knock.

A small sound made him pause, his fist freezing in mid air.

Crying.

She was crying in there, soft muffled sobs coming from beyond the bedroom door.

Should he knock? 

Should he go in?

He tried to turn the knob hesitantly. The door was locked.

Clearing his throat, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, he said, softly,

"Nicole?"

No answer, just more sounds of crying.

"Please?"

There was a long pause, with no noise whatsoever, and Michael was about to give up and go back into the living room when the latch on the other side of the door clicked, and the door opened slowly.

She looked terrible.

Her face was pale, her hair tangled, her eyes bloodshot red. 

She scrubbed her hand roughly across her face, trying to remove the moisture, before she opened the door wider and went to sit back on the bed.

On the shelf, the radio started to play out the CD again. 

Wordlessly, she leaned up and swept her hand along the length of the shelf, knocking the radio into a hard crash on the floor.

Michael looked at the broken radio, and at Nicole, and wasn't sure how to proceed.

He sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, facing her.

Before either could say a word, a stricken look came over her face and she was jumping off the bed and flying into the bathroom. 

Violent sounds of retching could be heard from the other side of the door.

After awhile, he heard the toilet flush, and the sound of her rinsing her mouth, before she came back out.

She flopped down weakly on the bed, burying her face in a pillow.

""I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled. "I just--I don't know what's wrong with me. One minute I feel fine and the next I feel so crazy I can't stand it. It's like my mind is going all over the place. And now I keep throwing up, too."

He rubbed her back, feeling both relief and fear flood through him in powerful waves. 

Relief because, whatever this was, HE was not he cause of it. 

Fear because, obviously, she was ill.

"Hospital?" he asked her.

"Hospital? Oh, Michael, I don't know, I hate going to the Doctor. The nearest hospital is almost 10 miles away, I don't want to drive that far."

"I'll take you."

She raised an eyebrow. "You'll take me? But you don't drive. How would you get me there?"

Wordlessly, he held out his arms in a scooping gesture towards her.

She started to laugh, softly, head still buried in the pillow, as she got what he meant. "You're going to carry me 10 miles, Michael?"

He nodded.

She laughed harder, so hard that tears came down her face. Finally she sat up, wiping at her eyes with her fingers.

"I'll go. But I'll call Bonnie and see if she'll take me, alright?"

He nodded, relieved.

He went into the other room as she called Bonnie, telling her the situation and seeing if she was available.

She came out about ten minutes later, dressed, with her hair pulled back.

"She's coming, she'll be here in about 20 min. But she needs a babysitter for Andie; I told her you wouldn't mind doing it. You don't mind, do you?"

He shook his head, smiling. He liked that little kid. She never seemed like she was afraid of him. 

Half an hour later, Michael and Andie were waving goodbye as Bonnie and Nicole pulled out of the driveway and into the road.

He turned on the tv as background noise as he pulled a coloring book and crayons out of her little diaper bag. Settling down on the floor with her, they quietly colored picture after picture, Andie looking up occasionally to babble something to Michael in her little voice.

She could speak a little, but mostly nonsense words and sounds, or things where he knew what she meant even if the words weren't quite right, like for people and colors and food and things. 

Behind them, Spot began to whine, scratching insistently at the kitchen door.

"Do you want to take Spot outside?" he asked her quietly.

"Toggy potty?", she responded, looking up at him.

He nodded, reaching for her hand as they went outside with the dog. 

He watched as she ran around in the autumn sunshine with Spot, giggling and crunching through the leaves.

They went back inside, stopping in the kitchen to fill her sippy cup with apple juice before returning to the living room.

"Meee streee?" she asked, when he set her down on the couch next to him.

He nodded, flipping through the channels until he found her beloved Sesame Street.

He went back and forth between doing his usual who would I kill first with the show, and wondering about Nicole. He hoped that whatever was wrong, they could fix her. He hated for her to be in pain.

At some point, the comforting hum of the tv combined with the warmth of the room must have put him to sleep, because the next thing he knew he was opening his eyes and Nicole was standing over him, smiling.

"You guys have been hard at work, I see," she teased. Glancing over at Andie, he could see that she had fallen asleep too, tiny head resting on his knee.

"You're a really good babysitter," said Bonnie, as she gently lifted her sleeping daughter into her arms. "She doesn't behave like this for her sister or her father, and I can never get her to take a nap during the day without a fight. How do you do it?"

Michael smiled, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, we should get going. Savanna should be home from school soon."

On her way out, she said, "I hope you feel better soon, Nicole. Remember, if you need anything else, call me."

He watched as Nicole closed the door behind her, locking it. She turned around and faced him, a smile on her face. She slowly walked up to him on the couch.

He started to open his mouth, intending to ask her what happened at the hospital; but before he could utter a syllable, she was tackling him, throwing her little body into his with full force and laying enthusiastic kisses all over his face and neck.

He was a little scared, at the intensity of her emotion. But at the same time he didn't want to offend her by pushing her off. So he sat still, letting her claim him with her lips, wondering what caused this sudden shift in attitude.

"Michael Michael Michael", she whispered in a sing-song voice into his ear. 

He looked at her curiously.

"The doctor gave me this natural ginger extract that can help with the nausea. Also some vitamins to balance out the other stuff. Unfortunately for you, what I have can't be fully remedied for some months yet, so it looks like we're just gonna have to get used to me being crazy for awhile."

He tilted his head, confused.

"I feel good right now, though. I feel wonderful."

"Why?", he couldn't help asking.

Smiling widely, she leaned down and whispered in his ear,

"I'm pregnant."


	11. Chapter 11

I'm going to need new boots soon, Michael thought to himself as he advanced on the little campsite.

He had had to hike out here nearly 10 miles, to come across these two. 

He was trying his hardest to stay away from the houses in the area, and focus more on the people he found by the wayside. It was safer that way, less easily traceable.

He found that more people camped out in the dense woods by their home when the weather was warmer; but there was something special about taking down the ones that came out in the cold. They were tougher, sturdier. 

More of a challenge.

This was the case now, at this small site far back in the clearing. The one man had put up quite a fight, but Michael eventually overpowered him, knocking him unconscious with the handle of an axe.

The other man tried, foolishly, to run.

Michael listened to the man's high-pitched screams, shaking his head before moving in on him.

With one swift motion he drew his knife blade across the man's neck, silencing his cries into nothing more than choked, muddy gurgles.

Tilting his head, he studied the picture before him, still somewhat unsatisfied with the outcome.

And then he had an idea.

He plunged his fist through the gaping, gushing wound in the man's neck, reached upwards towards his mouth, and grabbed his tongue.

Pulling hard, he managed to yank the man's tongue downwards towards his throat, and pull it out through the hole. It now looked like the man had a second mouth in his neck, and THAT mouth was rudely sticking its tongue out at Michael.

He chuckled to himself, at how wonderfully funny the picture looked.

He turned his attention towards the other man, who still lay temporarily stunned from the blow to the back of the head.

Picking up the axe that lay nearby, he chopped off one of the man's feet, admiring the soothing "thunk" sound the blade made as it sliced clean through.

Screaming, the man tried to get away, half crawling and half trying to gain his good foot to hop away. 

Michael began to laugh quite hard at this, his mask vibrating almost off of his face, at the idea of this footless man hopping away from him like a rabbit.

He let the man get a few yards away before he pulled his knife out of his pocket and threw it, with eerie precision, into the man's back, causing him to fall once more.

Michael walked up on him as he was frantically trying to pull the knife out of his back, carrying the man's foot in his hand.

Dropping to his knees beside him, he pulled his blade out himself and began sawing the toes off of the severed foot, one by one, until all five were in gooey, fleshy chunks in his fist.

He flipped the man over and pried open his mouth, stuffing in the pinkie toe and pushing it down his throat.

The man instantly vomited, covering Michael's front with steaming bits of undigested food. 

Undeterred, Michael opened his mouth again and stuffed in the remaining 4 toes, clapping one hand firmly over the man's mouth and using the other to pinch his nostrils shut.

Eventually the man's blood loss, lack of oxygen and impact from choking on puke and his own toes caused him to die, his body involuntarily releasing another stream of vomit into his held-closed mouth as he did so.

Michael backed away carefully, looking down at his two victims.

Then he looked at himself.

He was a lot messier than he normally was, covered in more questionable fluids.

Normally he wouldn't care; but since Nicole had gotten pregnant, he was especially careful to expose her to absolutely nothing that could harm her, or the baby.

Stripping out of his jumpsuit, he lit a fire from the remains of the two men's campfires and threw the jumpsuit into it, as well as the men's bodies, watching as they crackled and hissed into the steam.

Before he had thrown in the men, he had carefully searched through their pockets, looking for anything that might be of value.

Again, this was something that he had never concerned himself with before, but his mindset had changed a little in regards to the ethics of taking from the dead. 

He didn't want Nicole to have to keep working much longer, and he knew that the savings her grandmother had left them wouldn't last forever; so whenever he had the opportunity he perused the pockets of his victims for anything that might be useful to himself or Nicole. 

The one man had nothing on him save a small pocket knife that was absurdly laughable next to Michael's beauty of a blade.

But the second man, the toe-man, had a hefty stack of 100's in his wallet. Obviously he was someone of importance.

Or, he WAS, anyway.

He put the bills into his left boot and tossed the wallet into the fire along with its owner, watching as the flames leapt and danced around the bodies of both.

The smell was awful, though. A lot like cooking pork, only instead of pig meat it was flesh.

Wrinkling his nose, he watched as the fire eventually died out, leaving two charred, unrecognizable remains where two humans had once been.

He turned and strode off, naked except for his boxers and his boots, his knife tucked into the strap of his right boot.

He folded his arms against his chest and walked briskly against the early-morning chill, trying to reach home before it got too light outside and someone might see him.

About 3 miles from the house, he came across another camp site, this one inhabited by a young woman, seemingly just having woken up and gathering up wood to build a fire.

Michael passed on the other side of the trees, unseen, until he accidentally stepped on a sharp stick that cracked loudly beneath his boot.

The woman whipped her head around and saw him, eyes wide, taking in his near-naked and disheveled appearance.

Amazingly, she did not scream, or run, as others would do in that situation. 

She merely stood and watched him as he emerged from the darkness and walked slowly towards her, unsure of how to proceed.

He got to within reaching distance of her, and stopped, tilting his head and staring at her. 

Up close, he could see that she was quite a bit younger than he had thought, perhaps 13 or 14, and scared. 

Not scared of him, but scared of SOMETHING. 

Her cheeks were sharp hollows and her skin sallow. Her clothes were torn and filthy. She looked as though she hasn't eaten a decent meal or had a good nights sleep in ages.

He stood there wondering whether to pull out his blade and end her, when a soft cry from the campsite distracted him.

Both turned their heads in the direction of the sound, and the woman inexplicably turned her back on Michael to go and pick up a small wrapped bundle from within the tent, bringing it out into the open.

It was a baby, very tiny and pale, with dark hair and wriggling limbs.

Timidly, the girl began to speak to him.

"Mister, I don't know what you're looking for but we don't have nothin' here. It's just me and my baby. We don't have no food and we sure don't have no money, if you aims to rob us."

He tilted his head, silently, listening to her.

When he said nothing she continued,

"We been living out in the woods for 2 weeks now. Daddy kicked us out, said he didn't want no slut and no bastard baby livin' under his roof. Ma's dead or she would have let us stay."

He came closer, leaning down to look at the baby in her arms.

"Mister, are you an angel? Your skin is so white and shiny, and you're awful handsome. You must be an angel. Are you? You don't talk none but still. Are you here to help me and Jeffrey? We ran out of food last night, and I'm lost; I don't know where else to go. I heard there was something called a halfway house for girls like me, but I don't know where the town is to find one"

Michael looked at her, and at the baby once more.

Reaching down, he pulled off his left boot and took out the wad of 100's that he had stuffed into it, and held them out to the girl.

Her mouth dropped as her fist closed around the money.

"Oh my--oh my GOD! You ARE an angel! Ma was right, they are real! This is enough to get us some clothes, and food; maybe get some help!"

Before he could react, she was throwing herself at him, baby and all, standing on her tiptoes and reaching her free arm around his neck to hug him. 

Michael stiffened, then returned the hug, patting her back tentatively, feeling a little awkward at touching this girl with so little clothes on.

Her eyes were wet with tears when she pulled away. 

He looked around and spotted a blanket, which he picked up and tied around himself like a robe.

Then he walked back up to the girl and said, quietly, "I'll show you to the town."

He held her baby as she packed up their makeshift tent and the few belongings they had into an old canvas sack, hoisting it unto her back as they walked through the trees to the nearest town. 

Michael stood at the edge of the woods and handed her back her baby as she prepared to walk into the town. She turned around and looked at him, beginning to weep again.

"Thank you so much, Mister Angel. Me and Jeffrey owe our lives to you!"

She hugged him once more before turning and heading off into the direction of the lights, her step a little lighter and her thoughts a little clearer than before.

He watched her until she got to the entrance of the closest building, then turned and walked swiftly back through the trees towards home.

Nicole was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in the back door, the blanket still wrapped around him.

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Rough night?"

He nodded.

"I was getting worried about you, you're usually home before now. You must have found a lot of work to do, huh?"

He nodded again, smiling.

She stood up to hug him, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding tightly.

"Michael are you-", she began, peeling off his blanket. Looking at him, she began to laugh. "So you lost your clothes, too, huh?"

Before he could explain, she was grinning wildly as she unclasped the straps on her nightgown, causing it to fall down off her shoulders in a graceful silk heap.

"Oh, look at that, I seem to have lost my clothes, too," she purred, slowly reaching into the band of his shorts and grabbing him.

"We're both naked, and I don't have to go to work today. Whatever will we do?"

-.-.-.-.-.-

Michael stood in the corner of the dark room as the technician rubbed some kind of clear jelly over Nicole's belly in a wide smear. Nicole flinched a little bit, looking up at Michael.

"It's cold," she explained with a smile, taking in the curious look on his face.

Michael watched as the man moved a little wand over the jelly.

On screen, an image formed. It was a bit blurry but it was there, solidly.

Their baby.

But--wait. Why did it look so funny?

"Why does it look like that?" both Michael and Nicole asked out loud, simultaneously.

The technician looked at the screen, then back to his wand, and back to the screen again. He moved it slowly over her belly in a wide sweep, watching the screen as he did so.

"Well, that's interesting," he said, a smile forming on his face.

"Is something wrong? Why does it have so many extra parts?" Nicole asked in a panicky voice, reaching for Michael's hand. He took it and squeezed, also looking at the technician.

"It doesn't have extra parts, Ms. Pritchard. Because 'it' isn't just an 'it'; it's 'they'. You're carrying twins!"

"Twins?!"

"Yes, twins. See, look," he said, moving the wand over various parts and pointing out for her the separate 4 legs, 4 arms, and two heads.

Both Nicole and Michael were in silent shock, before Nicole managed to squeak out "Can you--do you know what they ARE yet? Or is it too early."

"No, no, I can tell. Do you want to know this early, though?"

Nicole looked up at Michael. He nodded his head, a huge grin on his face.

"Yes, we do."

"This one," he said, moving his wand over the baby on the right, "is a girl." 

"THIS one," he says, moving it over the one on the left, "Is a boy."

"A boy--and a girl. One of each," she said softly, still in awe.

"Do you have any more questions for me today, Ms. Pritchard?"

Nicole asked him a series of questions about what she should be eating, how she should be taking care of herself, what exercise she should be getting, and a variety of other things.

Michael didn't hear a single word of what they were saying.

All he could do was stare in wonder at the image still projected on the screen, the little blobs that would someday be his son and his daughter.

He was alarmed to discover that he was actually close to tears, and he quickly blinked them away before either Nicole or the man could notice.

And then Nicole was getting dressed and they were leaving, walking out hand in hand towards the parking, each quiet with their own thoughts.

Before they pulled out, Nicole reached over and took his hand, squeezing his fingers tightly.

"Thank you."

He looked at her curiously.

"This," she said, patting her belly, "This is the most incredible gift anyone's ever given me before. Thank you.", she said, leaning over to kiss him.

He smiled to himself as they headed towards home. 

As usual, her thinking was completely backwards, when it came to the two of them. 

SHE had given HIM everything in the world.

As they pulled into their driveway, Michael jumped out of his seat and ran around to her door, holding out his arms for her.

Giggling, she let him pick her up and carry her from the car to the house. Spot jumped up on them both as Michael opened the door, wagging his tail and barking excitedly.

"You know, you might not be able to lift me much longer," she said as he set her down. "With one baby, maybe. But with two? It'll be like picking up three people at once."

He rolled his eyes and kissed her on the cheek before going to let Spot out the back door. Even at 20 weeks pregnant she still felt like a feather to him.

"At some point we're gonna have to use some of our savings and get another room added to the house, here. They can share a room while they're babies but that won't work once they're older."

He nodded.

"I wish grandma was here. She'd be so excited for us, I know she would," said Nicole, tearing up.

He came over to her and hugged her gently. Then, he pointed to the right side of her belly and said, softly, "Sylvia."

"That's beautiful," she smiled at him. Pointing to the left side of her belly, she said, "Michael, Jr.?"

He laughed, nodding.

"Okay, then. Michael Jr. And Sylvia Myers. Look out, world."

She turned and grabbed her jacket out of the hall closet.

"Hey, do you want to take a walk with me? I need to start getting in some exercise, here."

He nodded, moving to grab Spot's leash off the mantle and whistling for him to come in from the yard.

"Perfect. We can walk down to Bonnie's house and tell her the news. She said she has a ton of baby clothes from Andie for me, and even some from Savannah, if I had a girl. That's 1/2 of the clothes shopping taken care of right there."

He nodded, thinking, as he so often did, how glad he was that Nicole had made a friend in this woman.

He still had something to ask her, though.

Something important and long-overdue.

"Michael! You coming?"

He shrugged it off as they headed out the door with Spot.

It could wait.


	12. Chapter 12

The lady called out to her husband from the bathroom.

"Thomas! Get the fuck in here already! I swear sometimes you're slower than my grandmother!"

Her husband was already dead.

Michael had climbed in through the open window in the kitchen and found him, with headphones in, bent over and rooting around in his refrigerator. 

Moving swiftly, he took the rope from his pocket and swung it in a loop over the man's neck, pulling as hard as he could.

The man gasped and choked for air, trying to loosen the rope from his neck and break Michael's grip on him. 

Eventually his struggles weakened as his oxygen supply ran out, and he gave one final shudder before collapsing into stillness.

Michael dropped him to the floor, tilting his head and nudging him with his foot a little, to see if he was really done moving.

He was.

He headed upstairs towards the direction of the lights. He stopped outside what he assumed was the bathroom door, hearing sounds of splashing coming from the other side.

Michael grinned as he pulled open the door just a peek, observing the immediate area. 

The bathtub was to the left of the door, the sink straight ahead and to the right. Plugged into the outlet above the sink was a huge old hair dryer, metal, with a tarnished pink handle.

Perfect.

He pushed the door open wider now, looking at the woman in the bathtub. She had a cloth over her eyes and was leaning back against a towel padded underneath her neck.

He tilted his head and contemplated the cord attached to the dryer. It was curled but it was long. It would reach.

"Jesus, Thomas! It's about time! Do you have my drink?"

Michael walked towards the sink, picking up the dryer in his hand and clicking it on. As it whirred and buzzed, the lady angrily sat up, yanking the cloth off of her eyes.

"Tom, what the fu--", and then she stopped short, seeing Michael. She screamed, trying to both scramble out of the tub and cover her nude body at the same time.

Before she got far, Michael chucked the dryer into water.

There was a loud spark, as all the lights dimmed in the little room.

The lady began thrashing around the water, her body twisting and jerking into impressive positions. 

Finally she gave one last jerk, and her body convulsed forward, her head sinking slowly underneath the soapy water.

Michael waited a few minutes to see if she was going to move anymore, but she didn't. 

He noticed that her sharp movements had caused quite a few bubbles to form from the tub and float around the room in a cheerful wave. He put out his hands and caught one, enjoying the light, tickling feeling against his palm.

Before he left, he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror. He had done impressively well for once; no blood at all on his suit or his mask.

He pulled it off and looked at his face in the mirror, digging through the drawers until he found a small comb, and ran it lightly through his long hair.

He walked out of the room and down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door.

He found the small backpack that he had hidden in the bushes before he had entered the house, and picked it up.

Stepping back into the kitchen, he began to strip out of his jumpsuit and into the clothes he had brought with him.

He quickly changed into the dark jeans, white muscle shirt, and black pullover sweater that Nicole had bought him so long ago.

He looked in the little mirror that ran along the top of the stove. He thought he looked okay, but wasn't really sure.

Most women, for some reason, always found him to be attractive--when he looked normal, that is, dressed in normal clothes and in an everyday setting.

He didn't see it.

Shrugging, he stuffed his jumper into the backpack and left, hiking through the woods and towards the town.

It was later than normal for him to be out, but he wanted to time his work right to coincide with when the store he needed to visit opened.

He waited a bit, checking the small watch he wore on his wrist, to make sure he wasn't too early. 

He walked into town and up to the common square area, sitting down on a bench and watching the early morning crowd pass by.

Eventually a car pulled up and into the parking lot across the street, and Bonnie got out, giving Michael a little wave as she opened her back door and pulled Andie out of her car seat.

The child spotted Michael and began to clap her little hands, straining away from her mother and holding out her arms for him.

Laughing, Bonnie handed her over into Michael's outstretched arms when they got close, shaking her head.

"Good morning, Michael. Sorry I'm a little late; Ms. Fussy-pants over there took forever to get ready today."

Michael nodded, smiling down at Andie, who was talking in her little babble a frenzied stream of words to the man holding her.

Bonnie looked him up and down, a small grin on her face. "Well, you certainly look nice."

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"So are you ready to do this?"

Michael nodded, and the trio made their way across the street, where a small, elegant looking building sat situated next to a florist.

"Which one should we do first?"

Michael thought a moment, then pointed to the one on the left.

They walked inside, and were greeted immediately by a small young woman, blonde, wearing a smart, professional-looking black dress and strappy heels.

"Hello, welcome to Diane's. How may I help you today?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Nicole ran through the woods, calling out for help, tiny feet crunching through the leaves as she fled through the darkness.

Looking at herself, she knew that something wasn't right. Her body was the one she had had when she was 7 years old, sunburned shoulders, gangly limbs and all.

She was wearing a knee length pink dress with red polka dots, a dress that had been her absolute favorite for several years, before she had outgrown it.

In her mind she knew that she was quite close to her grandma Sylvia's house; but she was lost, and scared, and confused. It had gotten dark and she couldn't find her way through the trees. The wind was roaring around the treetops and sharp branches were reaching out and touching her, caressing her bare arms and ankles like gnarly fingers, reaching, seeking, grabbing.

She came upon a clearing in the woods, oddly illuminated despite there being no moon.

A lady stood there.

A kindly looking older woman with soft gray hair pulled back into a knot, and a kind smile radiating from her face.

Nicole approached the woman slowly, hoping that she could help her.

"What's the matter, child?", the lady asked in a sweet voice, holding out her arms for Nicole. "Are you lost?"

Nicole hesitated, then went into the woman's arms, craving the comfort of this stranger to quell her fears.

"I can't find my grandma's house", she said, tears in her eyes.

"There, there," said the woman kindly, wiping her eyes with a lacy white handkerchief. The woman smelled good, like cinnamon and cookies. Her arms were soft and gentle.

"Let's go into my house over there," the woman said, pointing to a small house that rested farther back in the trees. "We can call your grandma from there. Okay?"

Something in the woman's tone made Nicole feel slightly uneasy, although she wasn't quite aware of that fact. She nodded, placing her hand in the woman's outstretched one.

"Here, sweet heart, have a piece of candy. You look hungry," said the lady, holding out a bright red wrapped sweet to her as they walked along. 

Nicole unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth, savoring the crunchy sweetness of it.

They got to the house, and the woman pulled a long key from her pocket, unlocking the door and pushing it open. 

"Go ahead, honey," she said, smilling as she gestured for Nicole to proceed her into the room.

Timidly, Nicole stepped into the dark room and waited as the woman stepped in behind her, closing the door.

Once the door closed, the story changed.

The sweet, gentle lady that had been so eager to help was gone.

Standing in front of Nicole was a man-like creature with ghastly pale skin, deep black eyes rimmed with a blood-like red, and wearing a frightening multi-colored tattered ensemble that looked like a clowns outfit.

He craned his shriveled neck and stared silently at her, his black pupils stretching almost entirely over the whites of his eyes. Slowly, he unfurled a long forked tongue from his grinning lips, licking obscenely over pointed yellow-black teeth.

Nicole could only stare, paralyzed with fear.

The man-creature approached her slowly, hands digging into his wide pockets and pulling out impossibly large handfuls of colorful candies.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?", he asked, the voice coming from his mouth still the voice of the kindly old woman. "Don't you want anymore candy?"

He/she began to laugh, voice rapidly changing pitch, the sound howling and shrieking around the room like a flight of bats released from a crypt.

The child that Nicole was began to cry, clapping her hands over her ears and falling to her knees in terror.

Grinning wildly, the clown reached out gently stroked her damp cheeks with his long, rotted fingernails.

"That won't do you any good, you know. The crying, I mean. They all cry, they all yell, but it won't help you now. Nobody can hear you scream, my sweet. Oh, speaking of sweets--"

At that moment, the girl clutched her stomach, aware of a powerful pain shooting throughout her entire body.

She looked up, and the clown-creature was watching her agonized kneeling with a wide grin on his face.

"How old are you, anyway?", he asked mockingly. "Surely you're old enough to know never to take candy from strangers."

Nicole began to writhe on the floor, choking up copious amounts dark black blood. The puddles hissed and sputtered, as if alive, leaking through the wooden floor like acid.

The clown snapped his fingers, and suddenly they weren't in the room anymore. 

They were out in the open, a field of some kind, with the sun shining down and the grass a sparkling green.

Nicole looked down at herself. This body was older, more developed than the little girl she had been a moment ago. And pregnant, very pregnant, belly protruding out in a grotesque lump.

"Looks like its someone's birthday!", came a cackle from behind her.

Spinning around, she found herself face to face with the clown again; only this time he/she/it had grown substantially, towering above her at 9 or 10 feet tall. 

Her feet were rooted to the ground and she couldn't move. Stitches were sewn into the bloody gaps of her mouth, holding it closed and preventing her from screaming.

Without warning, the clown reached down with its razor sharp fingernails and ripped a sizzling gash down her belly, her organs and intestines spilling out in steaming piles all around her.

Two human-shaped blobs also fell out, one male and one female.

Right in front of her eyes, the blobs grew into full-grown people, with impossibly beautiful porcelain-doll faces and sturdy, lean bodies.

Looking down, she could see that the boy and girl each held a blood-splattered butcher knife in hand, contemplating her with a serious expression on their angelic faces.

Turning back towards the clown, she was horrified to see that he now had Michael's face. His eyes stared at her without feeling, without recognition.

She felt hands on her shoulders and flipped back around. The two children had come up to her and were plunging their knives into her already empty body, eyes glinting with excitement.

Behind her, the clown with Michael's face laughed in Michael's voice, pulling out a butcher knife of it's own.

Nicole woke up with a gasp, shooting up in bed and looking around herself with wild eyes.

It was morning, and the sun was streaming brightly through her bedroom windows.

She could hear the birds singing outside. Spot lay at the foot of the bed, starting awake at her sudden jerky movements.

She tore the covers off of herself and clutched her swollen belly, hands moving all over, trying to convince herself that she was whole, and intact.

She laid back down for a few moments, trying to slow her heart rate and shake the horrifying images from her mind.

She had been having a variety of strange dreams lately, although this one had by far been the scariest.

Forcing herself out of bed, she went and stood in front of the mirror, turning this way and that, frowning.

She had gotten so big, and so quickly, during the past few months. 

Last month, her doctor's visit had been the cause for mild alarm, for both her and Michael.

Before she had went in she had been feeling quite ill, more so than normal, and was worried over it; although she tried t ignore it and tough out the pain.

Then tests had revealed that she had extraordinarily high blood pressure, dangerously so, causing the doctor to put her on a mild medication and order her to bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy, to prevent possible stroke or harm to herself or the kids.

She had been worried, at first; but discovered that her situation qualified for a paid medical leave of absence at work. This combined with her maternity leave and their savings meant that there would be enough money for her to rest comfortably for a little while.

She had read quite a few Expecting Mother books, and had had detailed talks with Bonnie, so she would have some idea of what to expect.

Still, it was hard to get used to the changes happening in her body.

Michael treated her just as lovingly as always, and even more so after she had been ordered to bed rest.

Since that day, he was reluctant to let her lift a finger around the house, taking over everything that she normally did, such as cooking, cleaning, and walking Spot. 

Bonnie went weekly for her to the grocery store, and often stopped by to visit or bring her more of her daughters' baby clothes, which were always freshly washed and folded into neat, tiny piles.

She glanced at the clock. 11:28 AM. Wow; she hadn't realized that she had slept so late.

She got up and went into the bathroom, combing out her tangled hair and washing the door reek of sweat and fear from her face. 

She went back into the bedroom and pulled on one of the floaty maternity dresses Bonnie had given her, dark gray, with a small sash.

She frowned as she studied herself in the mirror. 

Call Ringling Brothers and tell them they've got a new tent, she thought glumly.

She heard Spot scratching at the back door to be let out, and tilted her head as she heard it softly open.

Michael must be home, she thought to herself. Well, of course he would be home, by now; you've slept almost the entire morning away!, she scolded herself.

She finally stepped out of the bedroom and into the hallway, making her way to the kitchen.

"Michael? Where are y--", she began; then her call died on her lips and her jaw dropped as she looked around the room in wonder.

Strewn along the counters and windowsills were a variety of different colored roses, pinks, yellows, and whites, laying in pretty patterns along the surfaces.

Sitting in the center of the table was a large crystal vase, filled with two dozen more roses, all a deep red, leaking out their sweet perfume into the air.

What the--she began, softly, to herself.

Michael was nowhere to be seen.

She slowly approached the table and sat down weakly in a chair. There was a small pink envelope sitting by the vase, with her name scrawled across it in Michael's heavy pen strokes.

Shaking a little, she opened it to a small card with a letter written meticulously on the inside.

[[ Nicole,

You know I'm not very good with my words, or with speaking, so I've written my thoughts down here, for you to read. We've been together now for what seems like a lifetime, and each day has been better than the one before it. You are the only person in my life who sees me, for ME. Not just for how I look or what I do. You've already given me so much, much more than I deserve. I love you. I can't wait to be a father, but there's one other thing, I want to be as well. 

Turn around! ]]

Slowly, she stood and turned around from the table.

Michael had crept up, unseen and unheard, behind her.

He was kneeling on one knee on the floor, smiling with his sweet, shy grin.

He had a small velvet box in his hands, which was opened and facing towards her. A brilliant heart-shaped diamond shone out, situated in the middle of a delicate white-gold band.

He tilted his head and searched her face, his dark eyes piercing into hers.

Clearing his throat a little, he asked, in his quiet voice,

"Can I be your husband?"


	13. Chapter 13

"So today is your big day, buddy. Are you nervous?"

Michael eyed the man, and nodded slowly.

"Well, don't worry; it all goes pretty fast once you're standing in front of the guy. At least you're not having an actual wedding-wedding. But I guess that'd be a little awkward, what with--you know--", the man chortled, holding his arms out widely in front of him to indicate the shape of a balloon.

Michael gritted his teeth, saying nothing, focusing on Andie who was playing on the floor beside them.

He truly disliked this man.

Robert was Bonnie's husband. Michael had never met him before, and Nicole had only met him twice before, prior to today.

He was always away on what Bonnie referred to as "business trips"; although Michael could see nothing negative about that situation.

The man was a jackass.

He was loud, rude, extremely crude, and annoying.

It was obvious that his family did not care much for his presence, either. The older daughter, Savannah, hardly spoke to him, and Andie flinched away if he so much as spoke in her direction.

They were sitting in Michael and Nicole's house right now, waiting for the ladies to finish getting ready so that they could go to City Hall.

Michael had wanted to marry Nicole in an actual wedding, but she had shot down that idea vehemently, citing her weight and her self-perceived ugliness as reasons for not wanting to "make a spectacle" of herself.

He had tried to convince her that he didn't care what she looked like, that she was exquisitely beautiful to him no matter what, but his words were of no avail.

He had suggested, then, that if she were truly uncomfortable with the way she looked, they could wait until after the babies were born.

"But I can't wait for that," she had said, taking hold of his hands. "I want to be your wife now, as soon as possible."

So he had reluctantly agreed to a justice of the peace ceremony, with Bonnie and her family coming along as the witnesses and those present.

Which, unfortunately, included the odious man sitting next to him now.

"You've gotta watch out for these women, man," Robert said, taking a swig of his beer. "You think it's going great, you're getting a little something-something, and before you know it--BAM! You're trapped."

He leaned forward confidentially, before continuing, "That's how Bonnie got me, trapped me with that one, there," he whispered, cocking his thumb at his oldest daughter, who was sitting quietly in a chair and looking at her phone.

Michael looked at the man with barely concealed contempt. It was clear he didn't appreciate the gifts he had, his beautiful family, and it was disgusting.

An idea crept into Michael's mind, and once it was there it wouldn't go away.

Robert went away a lot, didn't he? 

Did a lot of traveling.

How hard would it be to find the next place he was going, and show up?

How unusual would it be if Robert had an "accident"?

No, no no no, Michael thought to himself, shaking his head a little. 

Nicole would know, somehow she would KNOW, that it was him.

But he genuinely liked Bonnie; he didn't feel as though she deserved this fool calling himself her husband.

Michael was fiddling so hard with his tie that it had come undone.

He frowned, trying to fix it.

Out of no where, Savannah was coming over to him and gently moving his hands out of the way, fixing it for him. He sat still and watched as her hands deftly fixed his tie, speaking softly to him as she did so.

"Thank you," he said quietly when she finished, smiling at her.

She smiled back and went back into the next room.

Her father watched her go, leering at her retreating figure in a disturbing way.

"She's real cute, isn't she?", he asked Michael, winking at him.

When Michael didn't answer, he went on:

"All girls are cute at that age, though. Young, with smooth bodies. And no babies. I tell you, kids just ruin a good sexy body on a girl. Bonnie used to have such a smoking hot shape before the kids--and now--", he trailed off, shaking his head.

Michael almost wanted to laugh, at how disgusted he was.

Almost.

"I guess you'll find out about that soon enough, though, won't you buddy?", Robert asked him, nudging him with his elbow. "The first time I ever met Nicole, I gotta be honest, I was impressed. Kind of a hard contrast between then and NOW, huh?"

Michael turned fully towards him, glaring at him with cold eyes.

He could feel himself shaking with anger, and worked desperately to control it. It was only by forcing himself to focus on Andie playing by his feet and Savannah sitting in the next room, that he was able to keep from getting up, smashing Robert's beer bottle, and jamming the glass end repeatedly into his mouth.

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

Glad of an excuse to get away from Robert, Michael stood up and crossed the room to answer it.

He almost fell over in shock, at his visitor.

It was Jason.

He was standing on his doorstep and smiling--smiling with his actual FACE. There was no mask anywhere in sight.

Michael had seen him only one time before without it, so it was a bit of a shock seeing it now.

His hair was combed back from his face, his skin that same pale whitish-blue, but not as bad as one would have thought.

He was wearing black pants and a long sleeved black sweater.

He looked--normal.

Well, not really, but close enough.

When Michael had sent a letter to Jason last month telling him that he and Nicole were planning to get married, Jason hadn't replied, so Michael wasn't even sure if he received the letter.

And he certainly didn't expect him to show up.

Jason held up that letter now, pointing to it and smiling.

Michael looked around behind him, for his mask or his machete. Jason must have known what he was wondering, because he pointed towards the backyard with a grin.

"In the shed?" Michael asked quietly.

Jason nodded.

He stepped out and hugged his friend, glad that he had made it.

He led him into the house cautiously, quietly introducing the people around him, starting with Savannah (who looked at the guest warily but was polite), Andie (who stared with wide eyes); and finally Robert.

By now Robert had consumed enough liquor to give him courage even in the face of such an ominous looking visitor, and he continued talking, filling the silence made by the two quiet men with more of his self centered, chauvinistic babble.

As he was talking, Michael could see Jason looking at him out of the corner of his eye. He knew that he was thinking the same thing he had been thinking.

Bonnie came out of the bedroom, looking lovely in a knee length pink dress.

"She'll be ready in a few minutes," she said, going to pick up her daughter.

Michael introduced Bonnie to Jason, noticing the way her eyes widened when looking at him. She shook his hand timidly, before going to sit next to her husband.

Robert immediately grabbed her, gripping her backside and planting sloppy drunk kisses all over her.

She pushed him off, looking embarrassed.

"Robert, stop it; you're messing up my hair."

"'You're messing up my hair!'" he mocked her, laughing. "You complain that I'm never around, I 'don't pay enough attention to you'; but when I do, you reject me."

He turned towards Michael and Jason, winking at them. "Women, huh?", he asked, smirking. "Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em."

Michael glanced at Jason again, and he knew. He knew that now there was no way to control it, or stop what was going to happen to this creature.

It was only a matter of when.

The bedroom door pushed open softly, and Nicole stepped out shyly, with red cheeks and a small smile.

She looked at Jason in surprise, not having expected to see him.

He stood up and walked over to her, bending down and hugging her. He hesitated, leaned down, and appeared to whisper something into her ear.

Her jaw dropped, a little, at hearing him actually speak. 

Michael knew that Nicole had just assumed Jason couldn't speak, and he smirked to himself a little at her obvious shock. 

Jason could speak just as well as anybody; he just chose not to. The only time he ever opened his mouth was when he had something terribly important to say.

Michael wasn't close enough to hear whatever it was he said; but it was obviously something that made her happy. She smiled, then stood on her tiptoes and gently kissed his cheek.

Jason smiled and patted her on the back before going back to his seat by Michael.

Michael hadn't been able take his eyes off of her since she entered the room.

To him, she looked like an angel; some beautiful painting come to life.

Her hair was curled and flowing down her back.

She was wearing a light blue dress, fitting snugly around her bust and flowing loosely from around her bump towards her ankles.

He got up and went over to her, hugging her gently to him. 

"You look so handsome," she whispered into his ear, her hands clinging to his neck.

"You're beautiful," he replied, kissing her deeply.

"Hey, come on, save some for the wedding," Robert laughed obnoxiously.

Before Bonnie could shush him, he was going on,

"So you picked blue for your wedding dress, huh? Yeah I guess that makes sense, the whole virgin thing wouldn't be too believable considering THAT, would it?", he asked, gesturing towards her stomach.

Before anyone could do or say anything, Jason had stood from his chair, lifting Robert up by the collar of his shirt in one swift motion and punching him with the other. Robert flew back into the wall hard enough to rattle the house.

Robert collapsed in a heap on the floor, passing out both from the blow and the alcohol.

Nobody said anything for a moment, staring at Jason in silence.

And then, amazingly, Andie began to giggle, clapping her little hands together with glee.

A pause, and then Savannah joined her sister, and then Bonnie, laughing so hard that her face had turned red.

Michael followed suit, then Nicole, and finally Jason, leaning against the wall and holding his chest.

Nobody could stop laughing for the longest time, and then Bonnie was speaking, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Well--it looks like Robbie had a little too much beer and passed out, didn't he? Too bad; he'll REALLY be missed at the ceremony."

Michael and Jason together lifted him and carried him out to Bonnie's car, where she quickly drove him home and dragged him inside, before coming back.

"Now then," she said, smoothing out her dress, "Let's go."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Robert had been right about one thing, at least; once they had stood in front of the minister, the entire thing went really quickly.

The tiny room was crowded with the minister, his wife, Jason, Bonnie and her daughters; but to Michael, it seemed like no one was there but Nicole and himself.

He held her hands tightly while the minister spoke, hearing nothing but seeing everything important.

Nicole's dark eyes, her soft hair. Her sweet smile.

He would never in his life imagined that one day he would be in this situation, standing in front of people he considered actual friends, and about to join his life to another person's.

It was surreal, and it made him feel dizzy.

Nicole must have felt it too; her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and her hands were slightly trembly.

He was so focused on her face that he almost missed his cue to say his lines. He grinned as Jason handed him the plain band, and he repeated his vows after the minister, slipping the cool gold over her finger. 

She repeated hers in a shaky voice as she slid a heavy gold band over his finger. He looked at it in awe; he would have to be dead before anyone got him to take this off of his finger.

The kiss that they shared was like one of many that had passed between them, with one noticeable exception:

Now, they were Husband and Wife.

He was barely aware of Jason squeezing him hard enough to lift him off his feet, or Bonnie warmly kissing both his and Nicole's cheeks. He couldn't feel Savannah's arms around him as she timidly hugged him, and he hardly heard Andie laughing and clapping her hands at all the excitement in the room.

The only thing he WAS strongly aware of, the only thing that seemed to matter, was Nicole's small hand, still holding his.

Mrs. Myers.

-.-.-.-.-.-

"No, I want you to go out. You need to get out, have some fun. I'll be fine."

Nicole was sitting up in bed, trying to convince Michael that it was ok for him to go out to 'work'.

Since they had gotten married 2 weeks ago, he hadn't left her alone since. 

Since she couldn't really stray far from her bed or be all that active, he couldn't take her away somewhere for a proper "honeymoon" like he wanted to.

So he worked his hardest to create a honeymoon like atmosphere at home. Which, honestly, wasn't very hard to do.

They had a hard time keeping their hands off of each other, hugging and kissing and touching, romantic meals and flowers and candles and music and bubble baths.

But Nicole knew that he must be getting antsy to return to his other "hobbies", soon. And she didn't want him to think that just because they were married, he had to give that aspect of himself up.

"Go, silly," she said now, giving him a playful push on the shoulder. "I've got the phone here, I'll call Bonnie if anything happens or I need help for anything, ok? And anyway I'll just be sleeping."

He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. 

"My sleeping beauty," he murmured quietly.

They continued kissing for a few more minutes, intensely, passionately. Another few minutes and it would be impossible for him to walk away.

Knowing this, Nicole gently but firmly pushed him away, smiling.

"Go."

Michael crunched through the woods, going in the opposite direction that he usually walked, to try and find some new prospects.

He eventually came across Bonnie's house, dark except for one light shining through the kitchen window.

Staying far back into the trees to remain unseen, he watched curiously as the front door opened cautiously and Robert walked out, looking around himself suspiciously before turning and wandering through the trees.

Michael followed him in the shadows, being careful to make no noise, wondering where he was going.

Robert walked about 2 and a half a miles from his house, to a car that was waiting a little to the side, just off a dimly lit road that cut through this part of the forest.

He got in the passenger seat, and Michael could clearly see a young woman sitting in the drivers seat, who turned and smiled when Robert got in.

In the light of the opened car door, Michael saw Robert lean over and kiss this woman, passionately, on her lips.

Michael nodded slowly to himself, to confirm the necessity of what he was about to do.

Pulling his blade out of his pocket, he dropped to his knees and crawled along on his belly to the car, where it's occupants were busily physically engaged with each other.

The radio was playing loudly, and the two were so intertwined that neither noticed the hissing sound of all four tires being punctured with Michael's blade.

Smiling to himself, he rose up from the ground and stood directly in front of the car, in the headlights, waiting to be noticed.

It took a minute, but both Robert and his girlfriend saw Michael standing there at the same time, and screamed simultaneously.

The girl immediately cranked the engine and tried to pull away, puzzled when the wheels wouldn't move.

She leapt out of the drivers seat and tried to run past Michael, screaming shrilly.

He caught her shirt as she was going past, whipping her around and jamming his blade into her chest.

All things considered, he wasn't intending to make her suffer, like he was Robert. She was more or less just a wrong place, wrong time bystander.

A few more stabs to the chest ensured her death, and he dropped her indifferently to the ground.

He approached the car, where Robert had locked the doors and was hunched down in the passenger seat, holding his hands out in front of him in a weak shield and whimpering like a coward.

Michael grabbed the handle of the door and yanked so hard that the lock popped open and the door hung crazily off its hinges at a pronounced angle.

He grabbed Robert by the fringe of his hair and yanked him out as easily as one would a rag doll, tossing him to the hard ground.

Robert scrambled to his knees and tried to crawl away, moaning and slobbering.

Michael put one heavy boot on his back, pressing his face down into the sharp gravel.

He took out his knife and made several sharp cuts into the back of Robert's neck, not deep enough to be fatal but hard enough to hurt.

Robert screeched, his hands flying to his neck, pressing into the bloody wounds.

The next part of Michael's plan made him a little uncomfortable.

Bracing himself, he yanked down Roberts pants and exposed his genitals. He gripped his balls and began to slice slowly through, separating the pair from the rest of his body. 

Roberts screams were agonizingly deafening at this point, and Michael knew he would have to quiet him before he attracted any attention. So he took the bloody balls in his hand and shoved them solidly into Robert's mouth, muffling his cries.

Robert choked and gagged, his eyes horror-struck at the thought of his balls being wedged in his mouth.

Michael sat down on Robert's chest, keeping him immobile, as he took his blade and sawed into Robert's right arm, drawing the edge back and forth like a saw, ignoring all the blood shooting out in a torrent.

A smell attracted his attention. Looking down, he almost laughed to see that Robert had evacuated his bowels in a steaming, stinking heap into the ground.

Using a nearby stick, he scooped up a hunk of offal and drove it solidly into Robert's left eye. Shit, blood and tears mixed together and ran down the side of his face.

Blinded by your own shit and gagged by your own balls, Michael thought to himself. How sad.

The end was near, now. Robert had lost too much blood to live much longer.

So slowly, Michael peeled off his mask and dropped it to the ground, revealing his own face.

Robert's unpunctured eye widened in terrible recognition.

Michael smiled and waved at him. Then he raised his knife again and brought it down repeatedly into the man's vile heart.

After he was dead, Michael stood, and looked down at the man for a long time.

He walked over to the girl, picked her up and put her back in the drivers seat of the car. He dragged Robert up and put him back into the passenger seat.

He striped Robert's shirt off of him and balled it into a thin rope, and stuck it into the car's gas pipe, before turning the key in the ignition. He took a beer bottle out of the back seat, and poured the entire thing over the cloth ripe, being careful to saturate the entire thing. 

He pulled Robert's lighter out of his pocket, and lit the very end of the rope. 

He moved swiftly away into the trees, not bothering to look back at the fiery explosion that boomed into the stillness a few moments later.

Whoever the coroner was, would defiantly have fun with Robert's body.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Michael got back to the house just before sunrise, having dropped his filthy clothes into the lime pit in the woods and walking home once again in boots and boxers, his mask and knife tucked under his arm.

He crept quietly in the back door, expecting Nicole to still be asleep.

He didn't expect to see her fully dressed, sitting at the kitchen table and breathing heavily.

He went to her side immediately, panicked.

She smiled at him, putting her arm on his hand.

"Guess what?"


	14. Chapter 14

Michael held Nicole's hand, wincing a little at how hard she was squeezing, and watched as her face contorted into a grimace as she waited for the epidural to be administered.

She had wanted to give birth naturally, and had heatedly protested this, until a doctor came in and explained that with multiple births it was safer not to risk a vaginal delivery.

The anesthesiologist had her hand probing Nicole's spine now, looking for the correct spot to insert the needle. Nicole was sitting hunched forward, slightly curled, as she waited.

"You know I've never really liked needles, and now--" Nicole was saying, as the lady finally injected her. She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes going wide and all the pain rapidly sinking out of her face. Her grip on Michael's hand loosened.

"Ohhhh," she drawled, leaning back. "Wow. Wow. I don't feel anything down there at all!", she told Michael, a small smile on her face.

He smiled back, glad that she was temporarily out of pain.

He had rushed her to the hospital himself, surprising her with his new driving skills that he had secretly been getting lessons in for weeks from Bonnie.

He stood here, now, scrubbed and wearing a clean pullover medical scrub, and awaited the birth of his children.

The doctor came in, looking at his chart and smiling at the two of them.

"Well, I see you're all set up and ready to go, Mrs. Myers," he said, going to the sink at the far end and meticulously scrubbing himself down in hot water and antiseptic. 

He looked over his shoulder at Michael. "I take it you're the proud papa?"

Michael nodded.

"A word of caution, son; C-sections are almost always difficult for the father to watch. I've had countless dads faint at the first incision. If blood isn't your thing, I'd suggest you keep focused on your wife's face and not watch during the surgery."

Nicole started to laugh, her upper body shaking with mirth. Michael joined her, squeezing her hand and shaking his head.

"Did I miss something?", asked the Doctor, coming up to them. 

"No, no," said Nicole. "It's just--my husband is definitely used to blood."

"Oh, really?", the man asked, eyeing Michael. "What line of work you in?"

"He's a butcher," said Nicole with a grin, as Michael leaned down and kissed her.

The procedure itself seemed to go fairly quickly.

There was a heart-stopping moment when the doctor had removed one baby, clearing its mouth, and it began to cry.

The sound was like music to Michael's ears, and brought the reality of the situation crashing home for him.

The doctor held the child up briefly. "It's a boy."; before the nurse took him away to clean him. 

More poking and prodding, and the second baby was out, shrieking loudly as she was held up by the doctor. "A girl!"

Nicole breathed out a sigh of relief. She had done it, she had gotten through the procedure successfully.

She could hear her babies crying simultaneously as they were cleaned and examined. Finding that they were healthy and vital, they were wrapped in blankets and brought over to Michael, one at a time, as the doctor began to sew Nicole back up.

Michael looked down in awe at his daughter. Tiny! So tiny! How was he going to hold her and not break her? 

The nurse placed the girl gently in his arms, after showing him how to support her head and neck. 

Tiny red face, with a surprisingly thick crop of black hair. She cried a little in his arms, tiny hands moving underneath the blanket. She opened her eyes, a gorgeous warm brown, and looked at him.

He kissed the top of her head, breathing her in, before walking over and showing his wife.

"Sylvia," he said quietly, a grin on his face.

Nicole gasped, at how absolutely perfect her daughter looked. She wanted nothing so badly as to take this child into her arms and hold her, but the doctor didn't want to do so, while the anesthesia was still in effect.

So she contented herself with kissing her daughter's hair as Michael held her close to her, before she was taken away by the nurse.

Another nurse brought over the boy, wrapped in a blue blanket and crying loudly, showing off his strong little lungs. 

He was laid in Michael's waiting arms. He had black hair, too, although less than his sister; and his eyes were slightly darker. Michael kissed his son before bringing him over to show Nicole.

"Michael," he said.

Nicole smiled, kissing her son and reaching out to stroke his hair. "They're so beautiful," she said as the nurse took her son away, tears in her eyes.

Michael pulled up a chair to her bedside, as the doctor continued to stitch her up.

He laid his head softly onher chest, listening to her heartbeat. 

"Are you okay?"

"I feel so good right now that it's scaring me," she replied, stroking his hair. "Starting to get a little tired, though. That was hard work!", she said jokingly.

He leaned up to kiss her, holding her close, refusing to let go.

They kissed so long that neither realized that the doctor had been trying to get their attention for several moments now, clearing his throat and smiling embarrassedly.

"You're all done, Mrs. Myers! You did wonderfully. They're going to take you to recovery now, to get some sleep. Now I want you to rest well, dear, and don't worry about anything; your kids are in good hands here."

She nodded, fighting against her drowsiness. "Can Michael come with me?"

"You can go, Papa, but only for a little while. She needs to get some rest. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll want to make some calls, and tell everyone the good news!"

Michael shook the doctor's hand, saying a quiet "Thank you."

"Congratulations to the both of you," the man replied, before leaving the room.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Hours passed, Nicole resting and healing up some, before she was moved to a regular room.

Michael was waiting for her as they wheeled her in, grinning widely.

He had bought her a dozen roses and a number of pink and blue balloons, to fill the tiny room. 

She looked around the room with a smile, trying to keep the grimace from her face as they moved her from the stretcher to the bed. She was sore now, beginning to feel a little bit of the pain.

After the aides left to retrieve their children, Michael came over to her, sitting gingerly at the edge of her bed and stroking her face softly, searching her eyes.

"I'm fine," she answered his unspoken question, craning her head upwards and pursing her lips to indicate she wanted him to kiss her. He did so, being careful not to jostle her too much.

"Did you call Bonnie?" she asked.

He nodded. He had. She had been ecstatic in her excitement, promising to come as soon as she could. Andie was too young to come, so she had to wait for Savannah to get off school to babysit her, as much as she had wanted to come, too. 

"Robert was supposed to be home today, but he went out last night and hasn't come back yet. Probably got drunk somewhere again," Bonnie had told him over the phone, sounding annoyed.

Michael felt a tiny twinge of guilt over this, but just a tiny bit. 

She would find out what happened soon enough.

He stopped thinking about that, though, as two nurses brought in their babies.

Nicole held out her arms eagerly, and the nurse placed Michael into them, and the other gave Sylvia to her father.

Nicole could not get over how small they were, how perfect. She couldn't stop kissing them, and Michael, whenever he leaned close.

Eventually they laid the two children down in individual tall rolling cradles by her bedside, watching as they slept peacefully.

She looked at the clock. It was getting on 4pm. 

"You look so tired right now," she said to Michael, frowning a little. "You haven't been to bed since before yesterday, have you?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, come here," she said, scooting over a little and patting her bed. 

There wasn't much room on the little bed, but he was able to squeeze into the edge of it, curled up next to his wife. 

"Knock knock," came a voice from the door, before Bonnie poked her head in, a huge grin on her face.

She was carrying a large arrangement of mixed flowers in a vase, which she placed on the windowsill by Nicole's head. She tiptoed up to her and hugged her softly, kissing her forehead.

"Congratulations!" she exclaimed softly, as she crept up to the babies cradles. "Oh, Nicole, they're gorgeous! Have you named them yet?"

"Sylvia, and Michael Jr.," she replied, also speaking softly, so as not to wake Michael. He was completely knocked out, curled next to her and snoring quietly.

Bonnie looked at him and grinned, shaking her head. 

"He must have been tired, huh?"

"He was. He's been up for a long time, now. My three babies, all sound asleep," she murmured.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The next few weeks were a mixture of challenge and bliss, for the two of them.

Nicole had healed well from the operation, but was terribly sore for quite a long time afterwards, suffering from intense abdominal and back pain. 

For the first few days she was in so much pain that she could barely sit, and against her will her eyes filled with tears more than once.

Michael was worried, and encouraged her to keep taking her pain killers, despite the fact that they didn't seem to help for more than a handful of hours at a time.

Nicole didn't like taking them. They made her really tired, and she felt she spent enough time in bed or sitting as it was. 

She didn't tell him, not out loud, but she fell in love with Michael all over again during those first few weeks.

He was a tireless father, changing diapers, making formula, bathing, getting up in the middle of the night. 

He also spent long amounts of time tending to his wife, gently massaging her back, cooking, and taking care of everything around the house.

Bonnie and her daughters came over a lot, too; playing with and holding the two small newborns. 

Three days after Nicole had come back from the hospital, Bonnie came over, alone, to see her.

The police had shown up at her door, and said that her husband's body had been discovered out in the woods, badly mutilated and burned to a crisp. 

They had found him in a car that apparently crashed and exploded into a tree--with another woman.

"I just--Nicole I don't want to upset you, I know you've got things of your own to worry about: but I needed SOMEONE to talk to."

"Oh my God, no, it's okay, come here," Nicole had said, taking Bonnie into her arms. 

Bonnie cried for a long time, before saying, in a choked voice, "I just feel so bad--because I DON'T feel bad at all," she explained, looking up at Nicole guiltily.

Nicole said nothing, only patted her back and let her get out the rest of her tears.

After a few minutes, Bonnie spoke again, this time in a whisper, as though afraid someone might hear. 

Even though they were alone in the house; Michael had gone to the store, and it was just Nicole and the babies.

"I've been praying for the longest time that he would just disappear, or run off with one of his girlfriends, and let us be. Andie' s too young, but I'm almost positive Savannah hated him as much as I did. She got upset when I told her, and she started to cry; but I honestly feel like there was no real sadness behind it, you know?"

Nicole nodded.

"Anyway, once the autopsy is done they'll give his body back, and ill have him buried next to his parents out in Oakridge cemetery."

"He--was burned pretty badly, but was cut up beforehand. Somebody killed him. That's what I think. And I'd like to thank that person."

She hesitated, took a deep breath, and looked Nicole in the eyes.

"Do you think I'm a bad person? Your honest answer."

"Nicole tilted her head, thinking a bit. Finally she smiled at her friend. 

"No, I don't. You've told me some pretty horrible things about the stuff he's done to you, both in the past, and now. And, suddenly, it's like your chains have been broken, and you're free. It's only natural to feel a little sad; you spent almost 20 years with the man, and had two children with him. But, still; you're free."

Little Michael began to cry from the other room, and before Nicole could rise, Bonnie went in to get him, bringing him into the living room and rocking him back and forth in her arms. 

Nicole got up, wincing, and went into the kitchen to get a fresh bottle. She brought it over to Bonnie.

Before she went back to her chair, she peeked in the twins' bedroom. Sylvia was still asleep, her little face turned towards the bars of the crib.

Michael walked in the door, arms loaded down with bags of groceries.

He looked at Bonnie and nodded. He saw Nicole, standing at the door of the twins' room, and frowned. He set his bags down, went up to her and lifted her swiftly off her feet, carrying her back to her chair.

"I told you, you don't have to do that! I can walk! Sort of!" she told him, smiling.

She quickly grew somber as Bonnie told Michael of her reason for being there, and the sad news she had about Robert.

Michael remained expressionless, not saying anything but going to give the woman a hug.

He stiffened as she whispered "thank you for helping me" into his ear.

She smiled as she pulled away, noticing that both Nicole and Michael were looking at her as though she had snakes coming out of her ears.

She sat down, little Michael still in her arms, and began to talk to the both of them.

Apparently, she knew almost everything.

She was not a dumb woman by any means, and she had been able to put two and two together. 

Michael's late night "job". 

The newspaper stories of unsolved killings and disappearances that all seemed to revolve around this area. 

A number of little things and clues that had added up, over the years, into a clear, somewhat frightening picture.

"Here's the thing," she said to the both of them, who sat tensely, listening to her words. "You two are probably the best friends I've had in my adult life. I'm in no position to judge what others do."

"Michael, I see the way you treat Nicole, and your kids. I see how sweet you are with my kids, and with me. You're a good man, and whatever you do or don't do on your own time is not my concern."

"The only thing I have to say, as weird as it's going to sound, is this: obviously, you're good at what you do. Talented. I'm not trying to be offensive but why not turn your hobby into more than a hobby? I think you'd make an excellent hit man; I really do. Yes it's still technically "illegal", but you'd be paid. And chances are you'd be putting away people who really deserve what they get. Like, Robert."

Nicole sat, still stunned, trying to make sense of her friend's words. She was relieved, in a way, that she finally had a friend she could talk to on a very personal level. The way she had tried (and failed) to do with Susan.

She was worried that Michael might be angry that Bonnie had figured him out, and was worried he might feel he had to kill her, too, to protect their secret.

As scared as she was to see his reaction, she forced herself to look at him.

He was looking at Bonnie with an expression that she recognized. It was thoughtful, his mind calculating all his options and debating possible courses of action.

Suddenly, amazingly, his face cleared and he was laughing. He got up once more to hug the woman holding his son, this time kissing the top of her forehead.

No words, but there was no need for any.

They understood each other.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"All the numbers are by the phone, and of course you can always call your mother if anything g goes wrong. Not that anything will. I've already bolted the back door, you'll just have to lock the front one behind us. Are you SURE you'll be ok, now?"

Savannah nodded, holding Sylvia in her arms. "I'll be fine! Now you too get out of here!"

It was about 3 and a half months after they had brought the twins home, and Michael had felt that they were long overdue for some time to themselves 

He had asked if Savannah would be willing to drop by and watch the babies for a few hours, and she had eagerly agreed, bringing Andie along with her.

Andie was playing in the other room with Spot, giggling away.

Nicole looked around worriedly, trying to think if there was anything she had forgotten to do, or tell Savannah.

Michael took hold of her and picked her up, carrying her towards the door. Nicole blushed, embarrassed, and Savannah laughed.

"Have fun!" she said, locking the door solidly behind them.

Once outside, Nicole made Michael put her down. This was the first time in a long time that she felt physically well, and able to move around almost like normal, and she didn't want to waste her chance to walk again.

Their date went well, going out to eat and then to a movie, which was one of those gory slasher films that everyone always wanted to see.

It was supposed to be scary, but Michael laughed almost the entire way through it, at once point chortling so hard he almost choked on his popcorn.

He took the long way home, through the offbeat road in the deep woods, gliding along through the dark.

About a mile from home they came across a campsite, pushed way back into the trees. Squinting, Nicole could just barely make out a large man sitting in front of the fire, eating.

An idea came to her.

While they were still a ways away, she put her hand on Michael's arm, nodding towards the man. 

"Do you--want to stop?"

He looked at her, then at the man in question, then back to her again, a slow smile spreading over his face.

He cut the headlights and rolled to a quiet stop, a good distance away from the camp, in the other side of the road.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she smiled, giving his arm a playful shove. "Go ahead; I'll wait here."

He kissed her, then crept out of the car, walking in a wide around path until he was approaching the man from the opposite side, silently, unseen.

Nicole crouched down in the passenger seat of the dark car, watching.

Michael picked up a chunk of chopped log, and, before the other man knew what was happening, slapped it across his face so hard that it tore a wide, splintered gash down his cheeks, the hole exposing the teeth underneath.

The man gurgled and tried to run. Michael caught him easily and flung him to the ground, his skull  
connecting with a sharp rock in a sickening splatter.

Michael looked up and waved in Nicole's direction. Then he picked up the small ax that was laying nearby and drive it through the top of the man's head, neatly taking off his scalp and about half of his brain, leaving the other part oozing out slowly in a sticky stream.

He tossed the ax away and walked back to the car, whistling.

As soon as he got in, Nicole was pouncing on him, kissing him as she tried to pull off his shirt and unbuckle his pants at the same time.

He held her off a little, worried.

They hadn't been intimate since almost 2 months before the twins came, and hadn't been so yet afterwards, as they waited for Nicole to feel better and fully heal.

The doctor had given them the go-ahead about a week ago, but still they did nothing, each for their own reasons. Michael because he was terrified of hurting her and Nicole because she was self conscious of her body.

But both thought about it, often, and now the time had finally come to let loose with their pent-up passion.

It was slow going at first, with Michael trying his hardest to be gentle with her; but eventually they got really into it, crawling into the backseat and leaving hand and footprints all over the steamed up windows.

Afterwards they lay in each other's arms a while, resting.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm okay," Nicole answered him, smiling. "Better than ok. I feel amazing."

He smiled at her, kissing her cheek.

"What time is it?"

Nicole squinted at her watch in the dark. 9:52. Savannah wouldn't be expecting them for another hour yet.

She leaned up and began to kiss Michael again, grabbing his hand and moving it to her thigh. 

"It's still early," she mumbled into his mouth, sinking down once more into the seats.

-.-.-.-  
When they got home, they found Savannah reading on the couch, with Spot laying at her feet. Andie was curled up into a ball at the edge of the couch, and little Michael and Sylvia were each in their own little bassinet, both sleeping as well.

"Hi," Savannah whispered, putting down her book. "Did you guys have a good night."

"A VERY good night. It was so nice to get out. Thank you so much for babysitting, sweetheart. Did you have any trouble?"

"Oh, no. They're such cute little babies, hardly fussy at all. Anytime you both want to go out again, I'd be happy to come back."

Nicole gave her a hug as Michael picked up Andie, preparing to walk the both of them to Savannah's car.

"What happened to you?" she asked Michael as she pulled on her coat, eyeing him. "Your clothes are kind of torn up."

"Oh," said Nicole, laughing. "We, uh, got a flat tire on the way home. Michael got a little dirty changing it."

"That sucks. You should have called a tow truck or something. Changing a tire can be hard work."

"There's no need for that, hun," Nicole said, smirking a little to herself. "Mr. Myers is quite good with his hands."


	15. Chapter 15

The man woke up in a daze, coming back to his consciousness slowly, bit by bit.

He was aware of a dreadful pain in his head, and a weight of some sort, that seemed to be holding him down. 

He tilted his head and looked downwards, seeing that his wrists were tied tightly to the armrests of the cold metal chair he was sitting in. So were his legs.

He opened his mouth to call out, but found that he couldn't do much more than emit a muffled garble. A cloth was bunched between his teeth, held in place with a thick elastic that wrapped all the way around his head.

He tried not to panic as he evaluated his surroundings.

The room was dark, lit only by the faint moonlight streaming in through the single window. It appeared to be empty of all furniture, save for the chair he was in.

He thought that he was alone, but he wasn't positive. The restraints made it impossible to turn his head and look around; and there were several inky black corners of the room that could very well house another creature.

As if in confirmation of his fears, from the corner of his eye he spotted movement, a fractional separation of a dark shape emerging from darker shadows, and walking slowly up to him.

Too frightened to make a sound, the man could only sit and watch this figure come towards him, the way a field mouse will watch the approach of a snake. His eyes widened as they studied the being in front of him.

Tall, and heavily built. Wearing what appeared to be a dark blue jumpsuit of sorts over a pair of thick combat-style boots. 

In one hand he gripped the wooden handle of a butcher knife, long-bladed and horribly sharp-looking. He was running it slowly up and down his thigh, with an almost-restless type of motion.

Perhaps most horrifying of all, worse than the knife, was the person's face.

It was covered up by a frightening-looking mask. It was ivory white in color, standing out in sharp contrast to the slightly tanned skin that the man exhibited on his hands and neck. A shock of dark brown hair lined the top in a disheveled configuration. The eyeholes were wide, and black.

Deep back in those holes, the man's eyes stared out at him. It was hard to make them out, shrouded as they were with the absence of light; but they, too, were black, glittering at him in an unblinking gaze.

The man said nothing, only stood there and breathed evenly in and out, still stroking the blade of his knife repeatedly across his thigh.

He tilted his head and regarded the tied up man with a deadly, almost sad expression playing over the soulless eyes. It was calm, contemplative. Almost--curious. 

As if he was waiting for an answer to a question that he hadn't asked yet.

Slowly, using his other hand, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture, smoothing out the edges before holding it up to the captive man's face.

He squinted, trying to make out the image in the darkness. Horror dawned on him as he realized that the picture was of his family; his wife Sheryl and his two sons, Adam and Matthew.

He began to struggle against his restraints, thinking that this silent man had done some harm, somehow, to his family.

As he struggled, the man let the picture flutter to the floor and pulled out another picture, this one a Polaroid.

He held this one up, as well, in front of the man's face, watching as all the color subtly drained out of it.

The picture was of him and his . . . girlfriend. The woman he had started to see when he met her at a bar about 2 years ago, during one of his trips.

The tall man let this picture drop to the floor, too.

Without warning, he came closer to the man and raised his knife. The tied man squeezed his eyes shut and flinched, thinking that this was surely the end for him.

He was surprised when he found the tape around his gag being cut away, removed with an almost gentle care. Once the tape was loosened the man pulled the gag out of his mouth and dropped it to the floor, on top of the pictures.

The captive man moved his jaw around, trying to get some feeling back into it, but did not scream. He felt that if he were to do so, the person in front of him would not hesitate to stab him.

Instead, he tried to speak.

"Look," he began, wincing at how painful his dry throat made speaking, "If you're looking for money, you're welcome to whatever I've got. My wallet is in my back left pocket; I think I've got $300 in there."

The shape said nothing, continuing to stare silently at him.

"Okay, look; I know what you're probably thinking, but it's not as bad as you think, man," he said, trying to nod towards the two picture on the ground. "Amy is just a friend. I made a mistake; we've only had sex twice. I was going to break it off with her the next time I saw her, I swear."

Slowly, the man pulled another picture out of his pocket. This was of an older man, smiling as he held the restrained man's two boys on his lap, his daughter (this man's wife) in the background.

"Did--did Kevin set you up to this?", the man asked incredulously. "You can't take his word for it; he's never wanted me with his daughter to begin with. But I swear I've always been good to her. The Amy thing was just a fling! Besides, he can't get rid of me; I'm the top salesman in his company!"

The masked man let this picture drop. He slowly walked across the room, to a small table that the other man could now just barely make out, and picked up some papers.

One by one, he held them up to the man's face, giving him ample time to read each one before letting it fall.

The papers were receipts and records that indicated a very suspicious money deficiency within the company, all seemingly related to this tied up man. 

Embezzled money.

The man began to sweat now, a fine sheen standing out on his Brie and forehead.

"Okay," he said, attempting a smile, "You can't just take his word for everything, here. Like I said he hates me being with his girl, he always has. Of course he's going to do everything to make ME look like the bad guy! I don't--"

He was cut off mid-sentence when, without warning, the other man threw a punch squarely at his jaw, his fist connecting solidly. He groaned, struggling again against his restraints as he spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Please," he pleaded, "You've got to--"

This time the knife came up instead, flickering through the air and cutting a deep, stinging gash down his cheek. Blood poured out immediately, sliding down his face and mixing with the blood already coming from his mouth.

He began to cry, hot tears pooling down his face, begging the man to show him mercy.

While his mouth was open, the man took a small pill out of his pocket and popped it in, holding his mouth closed with strong fingers until he was forced to swallow.

He then shoved his gag in, before he turned and walked back into the dark corner of the room, crouching down on his heels and watching him, eyes calm and expressionless behind the pale mask.

Within 5 minutes, the man's body began to twist and shake and contort into various positions against his ties, his eyes blown wide open with sheer agony.

During the worst of his spasms, the masked man had come close to him again, this time holding a smaller, sharp knife. 

He grabbed hold of the shaking man's arm and sliced in a line straight downwards, coming away with a long strip of flesh. He held it up to the man's face, seeming almost to laugh as he shoved it into his mouth, alongside his horribly bloodied gag.

He did the same with a strip of flesh from the man's other arm, and both his legs, drawing his blade downwards with the care and precision of a man performing detailed surgery.

The man was foaming at the mouth now, the gag and the strips of flesh blocking its exit and forcing him to swallow back the vile, poisoned soup.

His eyes were rolling back in his head, his brain no longer in control of his body's movements.

The Mask grabbed the man's chin, turning his head and forcing him to look him in his eyes. Slowly, he raised the butcher knife above his head, and brought it down in a hard crunch into the man's skull. 

And again.  
And again.

When it was over, he stood back and looked at him, tilting his head, eyes roaming over his battered body.

Michael took off his mask, glad to get some air in the hot room.

He walked to the door and flipped on the lights, looking around him.

All in all, this hitman thing wasn't as bad as he had thought it might be. The people who hired him out for jobs paid for everything, including transportation to and from "job sites".

Half the time, they even provided their own location in which to lure the intended victim and do the deed, as this client had done.

Still, Michael's "job" did not stop him from attending to his other "hobby", which he liked better than this one. He enjoyed the freedom and spontaneity of his own kills, and didn't feel like that was something he could ever fully give up.

Not that he had to.

As it was, those who hired him paid him handsomely enough so that the proceeds from one job lasted nearly a month.

He changed out of his clothes, now, and sat down in a chair by the door, waiting for his client to show up.

Half an hour later, three practiced, rapid taps came on the door, and Michael opened it.

The man, Kevin Wentmore, came in, eyes immediately going to his now ex son in law, torn apart in the chair.

"I must say, you do an efficient job," he said, as two of the men that worked for him entered the room behind him, with a body bag. They methodically began to cut away his restraints and clean up the surrounding area, before stuffing him in the bag and taking him away.

"I'm glad my friend recommended you to me."

Michael nodded. He had put his mask back on, a rule of his being to never met the client see his actual face. It was safer that way, more anonymous.

The man walked over to the floor, picking up the papers and pictures that lay scattered.

He produced a small lighter from his pocket and lit each item on fire, slowly, watching as the papers charred, and then stomping the ashes into the ground with his shoe.

He picked up the last picture, looked at it and smiled. "I'm keeping this one. This is one of my favorite photos of me and my grandsons."

He stuffed it in his front shirt pocket, walking back over to Michael.

"Thank you," he said, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder. I know my girl will be upset about this, but daddy knows what's best. Anyway, I've got this really nice guy I want her to meet, once she gets over this douchebag. Good man. Good job. And if it doesn't work out . . . I guess I'll be giving you another call, won't I?"

Michael smiled, shaking the man's hand before turning and walking out of the room, humming to himself.

-.-.-.-.-.-

He drove towards home in the moonlight, forgoing the radio in favor of the sound of wind rushing past his halfway rolled down window.

He was just a little ways away yet, a mere 60 miles laying between him and his family. 

It was early evening, barely 8pm. He had intended to drive all night so he could reach home sooner, but his nodding head and dropping eyes seemed to argue otherwise.

He thought about just pulling over and napping in the car; but his sore back vehemently protested the idea. 

He drove along until he came to a small motel just off the main road, and pulled into the bumpy parking lot.

The sign said Vacant, so he hoped he could get a room.

He walked in, and a young red headed woman watching a small tv on the counter turned, and looked at him.

Her eyes roamed over him, up and down, in a leering way that made him almost feel uncomfortable.

She smiled, and drawled in a slight Hispanic accent "Room for one?"

He nodded, and she typed something into a computer, eyes searching the screen before she said "We have one room available, one queen bed, no smoking. That'll be $40, please.

He pulled out some bills and handed them to her, trying to ignore the way her hand caressed his fingers a little longer than necessary as she took them.

She pulled a numbered key out of the drawer and came around the desk, taking hold of his arm and walking him down a long hallway.

They got to #108, and she handed him the key, still not letting go of his arm. 

"Here you are. If there's anything else you need, anything at all, don't hesitate to call me. Just press 0 on the phone by the bed."

He nodded, pulling his arm gently but firmly from the girl's and unlocking his door, stepping inside and closing it behind him.

It was a simple room, with a bed, a small bathroom, a tiny tv on a nightstand, and a window.

He stripped out of his clothes and walked into the bathroom, stepping into the somewhat grimy shower and letting the hot water carry some of the tension away from his neck and back.

He stepped out, putting on a pair of pajama bottoms from his bag, shaking out his still wet hair.

Before he could put on his top, there was a rapping on his door.

He paused, before going and opening the door.

The desk lady stood there, leaning against the doorframe and smiling at him, eyes wide as they took in his shirtless form.

"Sorry to bother you; I know it's late but I thought you might like a snack."

Without waiting for a response, she moved past him and entered his room. He turned around and faced her curiously. 

"Snack?" he couldn't help asking.

"Snack," she replied, and before he knew what was happening, she had come up to him and thrust her arms around his shoulders, kissing him boldly on the mouth.

Surprised, he pushed her off, hard enough so that she landed on the bed.

Instead of taking the hint, she smiled and leaned back into the covers, saying, "I like the way you think, handsome."

He frowned and shook his head, holding up his left hand and pointing to his wedding ring.

She grinned and held up her own hand. "Yeah, I've got one of those too. So what?"

She was rapidly unbuttoning her shirt, exposing her breasts, her nipples hard and pointed.

He looked at her and blushed. Then he walked across the room to the door and pulled it open, holding it and pointing towards the exit with his head.

The woman regarded him for a few minutes, then slowly re-buttoned her shirt, sighing.

"I'm sorry, honey, but you can't blame a girl for trying. It gets so lonely out here, and I've gotta say you're the best looking thing I've seen in days." 

He said nothing, just watched as she made her way off the bed and across the room towards the door.

Once she was in the hallway, she stopped and turned around, facing him.

"Your wife--I hope she realizes how lucky she is."

With that she turned and strode away, looking back at him one last time over her shoulder.

Michael closed the door, shaking his head and sighing. 

Not wanting to have to walk past the woman again, he gathered his clothes into his bag and climbed out the window, landing quietly in his feet and heading for his car.

Tired or not, it was more than time to get home.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Nicole lay face down in her bed, exhausted.

She and the twins had spent the day with Bonnie and her girls, driving the 20 miles into the city to go to the zoo.

Looking back, she should have picked more comfortable shoes. Her feet were aching from all the walking, and from running after her son and daughter's toddling steps all day.

They had turned 2 last month, and they were every bit of a handful as all the baby books said two year olds could be. Running, laughing, fussing, talking a mile a minute.

But she wouldn't have had it any other way.

She did miss Michael, though. Since he had established himself as a proper hitman, he was gone a lot more often than he used to be, and was away for longer time periods.

But he was making copious amounts of money doing what he was doing, and he seemed to enjoy it.

How did that saying go, again?

Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life?

Something like that.

She had finally gotten her kids to sleep, and now she lay in her bed, trying to do the same.

Sometime during the night, she was aware of the sensation of being touched, and she opened her eyes, surprised.

Michael was there, laying next to her and smiling, his long arms wrapped around her waist.

"I didn't think you'd be home for another day, yet," she muttered sleepily, turning to face him.

"Sleeping beauty", he replied quietly, nuzzling into her neck with soft, slow kisses.

"Are you hungry? I can get up and make you a snack, if you want."

He started to laugh, pushing her shirt up before moving his head to her chest, kissing, teeth gently tugging at her nipples.

She moaned softly, putting her fingers in his hair.

He looked up at her, smirking as he said "snack" in a low voice, before moving his mouth further down her trembling body.

"Snack," she replied with a smile, opening her legs wider and preparing to enjoy a late night treat with her husband.


End file.
